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The American Prospect - articles by authorenNo Chancehttp://prospect.org/article/no-chance
<div class="field field-name-body field-type-text-with-summary field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even"> <p>The swift unraveling of the campaign-finance-reform law that went into effect a day after the last election should come as no surprise to the public, to lawmakers, to the journalists who've chronicled its shredding in recent weeks -- or even to the reform groups that fought so hard for it. What <i>is</i> hard to fathom is that a law that took more than two decades to pass and that is so modest in its ambitions has been so thoroughly eviscerated so quickly.</p>
<p>Understanding how this happened provides a good lesson in how Washington's political culture is so resistant to change. One of the leading reformers, Scott Harshbarger, president of Common Cause at the time the reform was passed, told me, "The amount of money will not change. The issue is just as serious, just as complicated and just as extreme as it's always been, but it will be pushed further away if the regulations and the court support us." The problem is, that's a real big "if."</p>
<p>In March, President Bush signed the Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act without fanfare and without conviction. Even before it was signed, plans had been devised by the political parties to thwart its intent. Indeed, certain compromises were made in the final stages of the legislation that signaled trouble. Within an hour of its signing, lawsuits were filed to gut its provisions. And while those lawsuits are wending their way through the courts -- with a final determination to be made by the U.S. Supreme Court late next spring -- the law already has been substantially weakened by the actions of the Federal Election Commission (FEC), by the lack of public outcry in defense of the law and by the bold moves of political parties to directly challenge the law's ban on soft-money activities. </p>
<p>The fiercest resistance to change has come from the Republican and Democratic national committees. They never supported the law's changes that cut off the lifeblood -- soft money -- of political party fundraising. They certainly didn't want to alter the natural incumbent advantage built into the current fundraising system. And so they have pulled out all the stops to declaw the new rules: lobbying the FEC to weaken the regulations, filing lawsuits to challenge the law's constitutionality and setting up sham -- supposedly unrelated -- committees to funnel soft money to the parties. </p>
<p>They have gotten much of what they wanted from the regulatory commission. The Center for Responsive Politics' FEC Watch , a nonprofit public-interest group that tracks the flow of political money and monitors regulatory shenanigans at the FEC, told me that while the new law clearly prevents federal candidates and officeholders from accepting or soliciting soft money, the commission has defined "soliciting" very narrowly. As such, it's allowing federal candidates and officeholders to solicit soft money at state and local party fundraising events. In another direct affront to portions of the law designed to prohibit coordination between candidates and free-standing soft-money committees, the FEC is going to permit candidates to coordinate ads with any third party -- corporation, labor union or foreign national -- as long as the ad runs more than 120 days before the election and does not expressly advocate the election or defeat of a candidate. This means that a candidate can write the ad, decide where it is to run and how often, and ask a foreign national to pay for it, as long as the payment does not go through the candidate. As a practical matter, it means that all of the sham issue ads we saw in the last cycle will now be run at least 121 days before the election and will be fully coordinated with -- as well as written and produced by -- the candidate. In an early primary state such as California, candidates will be able to run these ads from March (after the primary) through July. </p>
<p>Furthermore, the commission has said that it will ignore most activities taking place before Nov. 7 in deciding whether a group will be considered affiliated with a national party committee. This effectively sanctions one of the boldest moves made earlier this year by the Republican and Democratic committees to undermine the law: the setting up of "shadow" organizations that can continue to accept soft money. The parties called the FEC's bluff.</p>
<p>The trend has been set. As Harshbarger said, "The FEC drilled more loopholes in McCain-Feingold in the last few months than the previous FEC did to the previous law in the last 20 years." The FEC-issued regulations are vague, inconsistent with the law and unlikely to provide the tough enforcement necessary to make it work. </p>
<p>While it won't quite be business as usual in the world of soft money, when it comes to big money in politics, little will change. The new law did not even attempt to establish a balance between the power of the contributors and the power of the people; indeed, in some instances it made it worse. "You'd have to be naive to think that this will push money out of politics. It will just push it around," Harshbarger said. </p>
<p>To see what he means, one need look no farther than the various avenues available to those who wish to circumvent the law. For starters, Congress agreed to double individual contribution limits. It was easy to predict that simple compromise would enhance the influence of the fundraisers who broker millions of dollars to candidates. Remember the Bush pioneers? They will be even more influential because they can now broker contributions at $2,000 a shot. So, too, will the bundlers -- those who garner individual contributions from specific companies and then hand them over to candidates in one big check. The new reform law also allows federal candidates and officeholders to solicit an unlimited amount of soft money for tax-exempt organizations, and it permits the state and local party committees to solicit up to $10,000 per donor per year for voter registration activities. Another casualty of reform? Disclosure. Current FEC Commissioner Bradley Smith conceded, "It will be a bit more difficult for people to track the money" under the new system. When you're worried about reform, remember to give with one hand but taketh away with another.</p>
<p>Probably the largest growth area for big money in politics will be in the supposedly independent 527 committees -- political committees that can, with minimal disclosure rules, raise and spend unlimited amounts of soft money from corporations, unions and individuals. They can't directly advocate for the election or defeat of a candidate and they are supposed to have no direct ties to the political parties -- but they can spend their money on issue ads, voter identification, phone banks and get-out-the-vote efforts. Public Citizen chronicled the dramatic increase of these groups in the 2002 election cycle, finding that 175 of the leading groups marshaled some $133.3 million between January 2001 and the end of November 2002. </p>
<p>Why have the politically powerful gotten away with all this? Because there is no real counterbalance to the forces allied against the law. To the endless frustration of reform groups, the public has been notoriously difficult to engage on this issue. Reforming the way elections are financed has proven a Sisyphean task. And it is certainly not for the short-winded.</p>
<p><i>Ellen S. Miller is publisher of TomPaine.com. She founded and directed the Center for Responsive Politics and Public Campaign and was a senior fellow at The American Prospect.</i></p>
</div></div></div>Fri, 13 Dec 2002 21:42:08 +0000140030 at http://prospect.orgEllen MillerBite the Ballothttp://prospect.org/article/bite-ballot
<div class="field field-name-body field-type-text-with-summary field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even"> <p><span class="dropcap">F</span>or years conservatives had a corner on ballot initiatives. Think of California's infamous Proposition 13, and the anti-tax blitzkrieg that swept after it through 43 states. Think of the anti-choice, anti-gay and anti-environment ballot measures of the last two decades. But 2002 seems to mark a turnaround. "This year it's the liberals' turn," says M. Dane Waters, head of the Initiative and Referendum Institute, a nonpartisan resource group with conservative roots. Liberal observers agree. It's impossible to label every measure of the 47 that have qualified so far for this year's ballots as either "liberal" or "conservative," but of those that can be labeled, progressive measures outweigh conservative ones nearly 2-to-1. </p>
<p>
Why the lefty surge? "There's been a gradual change in attitude by progressives about using [initiative and referendum procedures] to get their policies enacted," says Kristina Wilfore, executive director of the liberal Ballot Initiative Strategy Center. There's also been a drop in right-wing use of initiatives, which has freed the left to be less defensive and more proactive. But what's provided the greatest impetus for liberal ballot measures is frustration with the country's increasingly conservative state legislatures. </p>
<p>
According to Damien Filer, spokes-man for the Florida Coalition to Reduce Class Size, this is what drove his group to the ballot. Its initiative was the brainchild of the charismatic U.S. House candidate Kendrick Meek, who tried to advance the issue as a Democratic member of the Florida Legislature and failed because of Republican opposition. In Oregon, the current initiative to raise the minimum wage comes after several years of legislative foot-dragging on the matter. Bill Zimmerman, a political consultant who heads the Campaign for New Drug Policies and has worked with great success on ballot initiatives for 26 years, puts it this way: "Progressive funders got frustrated seeing the issues they care about thwarted in legislatures or in Congress. They felt their goals could be achieved faster and more efficiently, and that they could generate more public discussion, by getting involved in initiatives." </p>
<p>
<span class="dropcap">A</span>s Zimmerman's remark suggests, with the heady opportunities of initiative-and-referendum activism come some sobering political realities. Because of the massive amounts of money needed to win an initiative campaign, even grass-roots liberals are finding that financial angels are important players. Tom Knox, the spokesman for an organization called California Yes on Prop 52, says his group's campaign to allow voters to register on election day will be "a tough fight." "What we are doing," he says, "is a threat to the establishment and the status quo." And it probably would be going nowhere if not for the financial backing -- to the tune of more than $1 million thus far -- of a progressive newcomer to initiative campaigns, Rob McKay. Similarly, the same-day-registration measure on the ballot in Colorado is financed by a wealthy young dot-com entrepreneur, Jared Polis.</p>
<p>
By contrast, Filer says that his group's wildly popular class-size proposal -- volunteers collected an estimated 50,000 petitions for it well ahead of the deadline -- is woefully underfinanced and could well be defeated by the big money of opponents such as Gov. Jeb Bush and the Associated Industries of Florida, who already are rattling their pocketbooks.</p>
<p>
He's right to worry. In Maine, an initially popular ban on forest clear-cutting was defeated in 2000, when the timber industry spent $2.3 million against the environmentalists' $267,000. In Massachusetts, a widely favored universal-health-care measure was defeated the same year, when opponents spent $5.5 million against the proponents' $465,000. According to Wilfore's group, heavy, unmatched spending on the "No" side of an initiative campaign is a very good predictor of the measure's defeat.</p>
<p>
Gone are the days when strong-minded folks could run initiatives out of musty church basements with little or no resources. "Let's not be naive," says Zimmerman, who has won 12 of 13 recent drug-policy initiatives and has three more on ballots this year. "Initiatives require capital and labor." His heavily funded operation conducts polls in each state to determine how to frame an initiative in order to increase its popularity. "Our initiatives are won in the drafting stage," he asserts. Zimmerman's staff identifies state-based activists, erects local organizations, helps them develop specific campaign strategies and provides most of the cash to implement them. Since the drug-reform movement took to initiatives in 1996, it has spent $15 million, about 75 percent of which has come from three individuals: billionaire philanthropist George Soros, insurance executive Peter Lewis and University of Phoenix founder John Sperling. </p>
<p>
<span class="dropcap">S</span>ome observers, such as Jennie Drage Bowser, a policy analyst at the National Conference of State Legislators, worry that the initiative process, whether dominated by the left or the right, has become a way for a minority to impose its views on the majority. Particularly in an off-year election for which few voters turn out, initiatives can be won by stirring up a small minority indeed. And it can be a far smaller minority that does the stirring. Bowser cites initiatives to ban bilingual education that have cropped up on ballots this year in Colorado and Massachusetts. All are promoted by one wealthy Californian, Ron Unz, who's had success with similar measures elsewhere in past years.</p>
<p>
Turning to initiatives and referendums to advance the progressive agenda is not an untroubling strategy. Nor is it sure to work. In the last hundred years, only 40 percent of initiatives have passed, and now that many states require ballot measures to include a statement of the initiative's fiscal impact, deficit worries may dampen voters' enthusiasm for even the most popular policies. Moreover, legislatures and courts have been known to thumb their noses at voters' decisions. In Massachusetts, for example, where initiatives cannot appropriate money, the Legislature has never provided sufficient funding to implement a campaign-finance initiative that passed with 67 percent of the vote in 1998. </p>
<p>
Still, in an era when even left-of-center politics are having a tough time, initiatives open another arena in which progressives can compete -- and sometimes win. In Wilfore's words, they're a "citizens' tool" that we ought to be using.</p>
</div></div></div>Mon, 16 Sep 2002 15:57:27 +0000142778 at http://prospect.orgEllen MillerThe Road to Nowherehttp://prospect.org/article/road-nowhere-0
<div class="field field-name-body field-type-text-with-summary field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even"> <p><span class="dropcap">F</span>or three decades, campaign-finance reform has been high on the liberal agenda. Not only that, it seemed like a winning cause: It played well in the media, attracted vigorous activist support and even, it seems, made its mark on Congress when the McCain-Feingold bill passed this March. And yet, moneyed interests have more power in Washington and in state capitals than ever before. Their influence may even expand come November, when the new campaign-finance laws kick in. </p>
<p>
This is not how things were supposed to go. But it's also not that surprising: Although the passage of McCain-Feingold (or the Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act) was a political victory, it was also a weak reform. Some groups tout its centerpiece -- a ban on "soft money," meaning unregulated contributions from wealthy individuals and corporations to national parties -- as a powerful bulwark against special-interest influence. Others see the measure as a modest step on the road to reform. Either way, the victory was more an archival retrieval than a bold step forward. Soft money was prohibited in the wake of Watergate, but the Federal Election Commission (FEC) gutted that ban. The same thing could easily happen again, as McCain-Feingold faces today's ideologically driven FEC, along with courtroom challenges from political parties and special-interest groups.</p>
<p>
Last month the FEC issued rules for implementing the law that also succeeded in undermining some of the bill's key provisions. For instance, McCain-Feingold attempted to restrict the spending of state parties on "federal election activities" such as voter registration drives. But the commission's rules allow state parties to spend <i>more</i> soft-money donations on activities that influence federal elections. Some reform advocates may file suit against the FEC; others are considering asking Congress to exercise the underutilized Congressional Review Act to repeal the commission's ruling. Such action, however, requires a majority of votes in each house, along with President George W. Bush's signature. Passing the legislation was hard enough the first time.</p>
<p>
Even if the FEC can be beaten back, McCain-Feingold will likely be circumvented. Big money is already shifting from the national parties to outside groups. Political action committees (PACs) raise and contribute money to candidates, parties and other PACs, and they pump their own money into "independent expenditures," meaning efforts to elect or defeat candidates. They have become a staple of national politics, with nearly every major issue group and federal candidate forming a PAC. Silicon Valley money man Thomas Siebel recently collected more than $2 million from his top executives to form a PAC. It took him just a few weeks.</p>
<p>
November will surely see an infusion of hard money and PAC money into both parties. Seventy-five percent of total contributions in 2000 were hard money. Unlike soft money, most hard money goes directly to candidates' coffers. And limits on it have actually doubled with the passage of McCain-Feingold. That was one of the many unfortunate concessions that got the bill through. </p>
<p>
With all these potential channels for big money, perhaps it's not surprising that some Democratic presidential contenders are reportedly considering opting out of partial public financing in the 2004 cycle. Presidential candidates can apply for funds from the government only if they agree to certain fundraising limits. Bush found those limits to be too restrictive in 2000; if he didn't adhere to them, he figured, he could raise more money than he would by dipping into public funds. There's a good chance that the Dems' 2004 candidates might follow his example.</p>
<p>
The reform community, meanwhile, has moved on to a new battle: proposed legislation that will award federal candidates reduced rates for airtime on television and radio. The National Association of Broadcasters will never stand for it. What's more, even if such legislation were to pass, candidates would go on spending the same amount of time raising the same amount of money they did before. They'd just have the added benefit of paying less for more time on the air. </p>
<p>
<span class="dropcap">A</span>chieving real reform on the federal level was bound to be tough. That's why activists have long sought to promote campaign-finance reform on the state level, with the hope that the strategy would then "trickle up." The idea was to establish, through ballot initiatives, public funds that state candidates could tap into to run "clean" -- that is, without private financing. But even where these measures were initially successful, they've been undermined by courtroom battles, by the actions of businesses and interest groups, and even by lawmakers. </p>
<p>
Four states -- Maine, Vermont, Arizona and Massachusetts -- have approved public financing measures in the last four years, and all have suffered migraines for their trouble. Four years after a ballot initiative passed in Massachusetts, the state Legislature's Democratic leaders are still unwilling to cough up the funds. A number of candidates are running clean in Arizona -- but the state's clean-money law faces court challenges. Governor Howard Dean slashed Vermont's public fund in his 2003 budget, and Maine's system, the undisputed success story of the state experiment, doesn't offer candidates enough money to run truly competitive statewide races. When similar measures made the ballot in Missouri and Oregon in 2000, they got creamed. Now there are no states that can realistically look to ballot victories anytime soon.</p>
<p>
What the states <i>can</i> look to is a dramatic influx of out-of-state checks. Although McCain-Feingold banned soft money to the national parties, it doubled limits -- from $5,000 to $10,000 -- for the state and local party committees. In the 2000 elections, according to a recent study by the Center for Public Integrity, the Center for Responsive Politics and the National Library on State Money and Politics, state Democratic and Republican parties raised more than $300 million independent of the contributions they got from their national counterparts. Imagine what those numbers will look like with the hard-money cap set twice as high. We can also expect greater behind-the-scenes coordination between these local committees and the national parties. </p>
<p>
<span class="dropcap">T</span>hree decades of effort have come to little. Why? Because the laws have not been properly implemented, and because reform groups have not been able to keep them from being undermined. Liberals spent the last 10 years pushing for a soft-money ban because they failed to shore up the post-Watergate one. At the same time, the focus on soft money sapped funding and attention from the most necessary reforms of all: full public financing for all federal candidates. </p>
<p>
Under the circumstances, reformers could be forgiven for feeling a bit like Sisyphus, rolling the same boulder endlessly up the same hill. In order to move energetically forward, the reform community needs to rethink its strategies and its short-term goals. It's hard to imagine any reform legislation sticking without a public and a judiciary prepared to take it to the mat. And there are already some initiatives that point the way forward in this regard. They are long shots and provide only small pieces of the grand strategy that's needed, but those pieces could turn out to be crucial. </p>
<p>
The National Voting Rights Institute, for instance, crafts legal cases that apply the Constitution's equal-protection clause to the campaign fundraising system. According to the institute, the current fundraising structure is tantamount to a poll tax: It imposes a financial barrier that prohibits participation in the political process by those who have little or no access to wealth. And if the inequality issue -- and the current outrage over corporate plunder of workers -- plays well with the public, Public Campaign and the Sierra Club, among other organizations, may well be on to something with their campaign to hold antireform politicians up to public scrutiny for their positions. If these sharpshooters can raise enough money to become valued players in the hardball world of congressional campaigns, campaign finance could gain the status of gun ownership or reproductive rights -- that is, of an issue by which candidates live or die. </p>
<p>
There is certainly no silver bullet on an issue as complex and integral to the American experiment as the role of money in politics. The notion that little has been accomplished in the last three decades will be hard for reform advocates to swallow, but claims to the contrary seem willfully naive given the reality of today's money-driven, donor-beholden political machines. It's time for the reform community to collectively consider the failures -- and the underdeveloped opportunities -- that have emerged from the last generation's battles. It's also time to begin thinking anew. </p>
<p><b>Correction:</b> The print version of this article lists hard money as 40 percent of total political giving. Hard money in the 2000 election cycle was 75 percent of total giving.</p>
<p><br /></p>
</div></div></div>Mon, 22 Jul 2002 13:22:54 +0000142689 at http://prospect.orgEllen MillerWillful Error:http://prospect.org/article/willful-error
<div class="field field-name-body field-type-text-with-summary field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even"> <p><span class="dropcap">I</span>n his latest <i>Washington Post</i> <a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/opinion/columns/willgeorge/A24017-2002May15.html" target="outlink">column</a>, George Will strives to discount the common-sense notion that special-interest money corrupts legislative action. In the process, he finds himself falling back on this classic canard, often repeated by the opponents of campaign-finance reform: "abundant scholarship demonstrates that most legislative behavior -- <i>and most campaign giving</i> -- is explainable by the legislators' political philosophies, party affiliations or constituents' desires." </p>
<p> This is a classic example of looking for one's lost keys under the lamppost rather than in the dark where they would be harder -- but not impossible -- to see. Consider the following clear demonstrations of money's influence on politics:</p>
<p><b>Dinner Bell for Donors.</b> The Tauzin-Dingell telecom bill that passed the House in February, allowing Baby Bells to offer long-distance broadband services without opening local service to competition, is a classic example of "money in, votes out." Those 273 members who voted in favor of the Baby Bells got seven times as much money from them from 1999 through 2001 as they did from long-distance companies (whose stance was on the other side of the issue). And lawmakers who got twice as much from the Baby Bells as from the long-distance carriers -- some 298 House members -- voted with them by a margin of 4-to-1. Within that group, the 180 members who got at least 10 times as much supported the bill by nearly 5-to-1. Those who got twice as much from the long-distance carriers, on the other hand, voted 19-to-1 against the bill. This holds true across party lines.</p>
<p><b>CAFE Tabled.</b> Did fuel-efficiency standards ever have a chance? The auto industry accounted for nearly $4 million in soft money, political-action committee, and individual contributions to federal parties and candidates in 2001 (79 percent to Republicans). On average, the 62 senators who voted with the industry to avoid toughening the fuel-efficiency standards received more than $18,800 from auto companies. The 38 senators who wanted strong standards received just a third of that amount.</p>
<p><b>Called to Account.</b> Or how about the accounting bill that passed the House on April 24? The bill's a huge boon to the industry. And the House members who voted for it got, on average, twice as much from the Big Five accounting firms and their trade association as those who voted against it ($33,150 versus $17,332).</p>
<p>Thanks to the <a href="www.opensecrets.org" target="outlink">Center for Responsive Politics</a> and <a href="www.publicampaign.org" target="outlink">Public Campaign</a> for the number crunching above. Over the years, George Will has penned countless apologias for the rich in the form of anti-campaign-finance reform columns. These data show that his latest item is just as off the mark as all the others. </p>
</div></div></div>Fri, 17 May 2002 16:34:51 +0000139837 at http://prospect.orgEllen MillerSpeaking Freely:http://prospect.org/article/speaking-freely
<div class="field field-name-body field-type-text-with-summary field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even"> <p><span class="dropcap">Y</span>ou've got to admit that Senator Mitch McConnell has found a clever way to dress up his support for the campaign finance status quo: He's been trying to wrap himself in the First Amendment. </p>
<p>On the last day of debate on the campaign finance bill that he fought for years, McConnell said that "the government is telling people how, when, and how much speech they are allowed," that the bill provided for "a wholesale regulation of every action of every American anytime there is a federal election," and that it "seeks nothing less than a fundamental reworking of the American political system." He further commented that the legislation "treads on the associational rights of groups it hampers the ability of national and state parties to support state and local candidates and federalizes our every action and conversation." </p>
<p>Strong stuff, that. But whose free speech is McConnell really concerned about? Does he expect us to believe he is a First Amendment zealot? Or is this talk of defending free speech just a convenient smokescreen for defending a system of privately financed elections that favors special interests friendly to Republicans? </p>
<p>McConnell has not distinguished himself with his past votes on First Amendment matters. In fact, a spokesman for the <a href="http://www.aclu.org" target="outlink">American Civil Liberties Union</a> (ACLU) said McConnell has rarely voted with the organization on any other issue. And in some cases where he has supported its position (for example, on a bill to reduce the tax deductibility on advertising for tobacco products from 100 percent to 80 percent), his motivations have not always been clear.</p>
<p>In this Congress, McConnell voted in favor of antiterrorism legislation that, according to the ACLU, will give enormous, unwarranted power to the executive branch and go unchecked by meaningful judicial review. In fact, of the four recorded votes taken in this Congress on issues of key importance to the ACLU, he voted only once -- on the campaign finance bill -- with the organization.</p>
<p>McConnell supported the Communications Decency Act of 1995 (the so-called Exon Amendment), which would have banned "obscenity" on the Internet but was overturned by the Supreme Court as an unacceptable assault on free speech. In the same year, he voted to impose new restrictions on the advocacy activities of federal grantees, including substantial restrictions on their use of <i>private funds</i> for lobbying activities. McConnell even strode out to the Senate floor to praise the restrictions as "outstanding" and "very useful." For-profit government contractors like weapons manufacturers and insurance companies were exempted from these restrictions. But groups like the Girl Scouts, Mothers Against Drunk Driving, and the American Lung Association would have found themselves facing meddlesome new regulations.</p>
<p>McConnell's past is even worse. In 1993, he voted with Jesse Helms to abolish the National Endowment for the Arts for having funded controversial artists. He voted to expand wiretapping, even though the interception of innocent conversations in federal wiretaps is already at record levels. And in the wake of the Oklahoma City bombing, he -- along with most Democrats and Republicans -- voted for the Clinton administration's counterterrorism bill, which, among other things, allows the prosecution of Americans who raise money for humanitarian organizations deemed to have links to groups designated "terrorist" by the government.</p>
<p>Only on the so-called flag desecration issue has McConnell shown that his support for free speech extends beyond the political speeches of wealthy campaign contributors. Over the last decade, he has consistently voted to protect the First Amendment and against legislation to ban flag desecration. The ACLU, however, noted that in 1989, he took the opposite position on two separate votes. </p>
<p>It's hard to avoid the conclusion that McConnell mostly cares about free speech when it's the speech of wealthy special interests who finance campaigns (especially his). If he was really interested in campaign reform that promotes political speech, he would support steps to ensure that more people can speak and have their concerns heard. And because most lawmakers today are dependent on and responsive to the tiny number of Americans who can afford to give big political contributions, that means making it possible to run for office without being beholden to private campaign funders in the first place.</p>
</div></div></div>Fri, 29 Mar 2002 01:50:09 +0000139754 at http://prospect.orgEllen MillerRefinanced:http://prospect.org/article/refinanced
<div class="field field-name-body field-type-text-with-summary field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even"> <p><span class="dropcap">A</span>s soon as the Senate passed campaign finance reform, the House started to undo it.</p>
<p>In a little-noticed measure, just as the Senate was moving toward final passage of the McCain-Feingold bill, House Ways and Means Committee chairman Bill Thomas (R-California) pushed through a provision to exempt certain political-action committees (PACs) from reporting requirements imposed on them some 20 months ago. The irony of the move was doubled when President Bush announced he would sign the larger reform legislation even though what he really favored was full and complete disclosure of all political activity. </p>
<p>The groups in question are a certain category of so-called "stealth PACs" that operate under Section 527 of the IRS code. Under Thomas's ploy, political groups concentrating on state and local campaigns would be exempted from federal reporting requirements, even though these groups can influence elections. Because state reporting requirements are notoriously poor, this could result in a complete skirting of PAC disclosure and a proliferation of stealth PACs at the state and local level. Considering that McCain-Feingold allows such groups to still raise and spend soft money, this can only create a huge downstream channel of cash.</p>
<p>So why the need for the exemption? The current regulations are "too burdensome and unnecessary," Thomas has commented.</p>
<p>The origin of the 527 committees dates back to 1974, when Congress decided that campaigns, party committees, and PACs shouldn't pay taxes on received contributions and exempted these groups from federal income tax and gift tax requirements. Because of this favorable treatment and because they could operate in the dark, beginning in 1996 these committees proliferated, becoming hugely important players in the electoral arena. </p>
<p>But lawmakers, who were often the targets of their efforts (as John McCain was in the 2000 New York Republican primary), were outraged by the lack of information available about the committees themselves. Because these "stealth PACS" filed no registration statements, no one knew who contributed to them or who sat on their boards of directors. So on July 1, 2000, President Clinton signed a law that required political groups organized under Section 527 to adhere to strict disclosure requirements. Even though it was subsequently modified, this law was viewed as an important breakthrough in campaign finance disclosure.</p>
<p>Thomas's cynical attempts at "streamlining" these disclosure rules, coupled with a new campaign finance law that will drive soft money to the states anyway, could take us back to the bad old days of campaign finance. Before the ink has even dried on McCain-Feingold, it's already starting to fade.</p>
</div></div></div>Fri, 22 Mar 2002 00:13:08 +0000139742 at http://prospect.orgEllen MillerWith Victories Like These....http://prospect.org/article/victories-these
<div class="field field-name-body field-type-text-with-summary field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even"> <p><span class="dropcap">W</span>hat a cruel twist of fate: campaign finance reform that benefits Republicans and big money. </p>
<p>The Shays-Meehan bill is back-to-the-future reform: legislation that takes us back to just before 1980, when there was no "soft money" but still a huge imbalance in the influence of the big contributors over the rest of the population. Under the terms of the bill that passed the House, the national parties' committees can no longer raise soft money -- the unlimited and unregulated contributions that totaled $498 million in 2000. A very good thing, that. But the tradeoff to eliminate this most notorious campaign finance "loophole" will actually enhance the power of wealthy special interests, for it loosens a whole series of strictures on hard-money donations -- and hard money has already eclipsed soft. Total hard-money contributions to candidates, political action committees (PACs), and parties in the 2000 election cycle came to $1.8 billion, nearly three times the soft-money total. </p>
<p>To ease shock to big-money politics, Shays-Meehan contains three separate increases in the amounts that individual donors can give in regulated hard money, plus a huge exemption that enables campaigns to sidestep the limits altogether. The first increase involves the aggregate contribution limit for individuals. The legislation nearly doubles it to $95,000 per two-year election cycle. The second hike is in what individuals can give to national political parties, which rises from the current $20,000 per cycle per party committee to $57,500. Within these limits, the bill also provides for another dramatic increase: the amount individuals can give to House and Senate candidates doubles to $2,000 per election. </p>
<p>But say that a self-funding multimillionaire candidate is running for office, as is frequently the case these days. Should that happen, Shays-Meehan raises the cap on individual donations to that candidate's opponents from $2,000 to $12,000. Another limit -- that imposed on the political parties for their coordinated expenditures to supplement the campaigns of party candidates within the states -- is lifted altogether. </p>
<p>Politically, this provision could prove more unsettling for the Democrats than for the Republicans. While only five of the 19 federal legislative candidates who spent $1 million or more of their personal money in 2000 won their races, four of them were Senate Democrats -- three of them newcomers (Jon Corzine of New Jersey, Mark Dayton of Minnesota, and Maria Cantwell of Washington) and one returning (Herb Kohl of Wisconsin). </p>
<p>So who would gain power from these fixes? To understand just how off kilter this reform is, you have to understand one primary fact: Today, less than one-tenth of 1 percent of Americans make a contribution of $1,000 to candidates, but these 340,000 individuals accounted for fully $1 billion of the $2.9 billion in hard and soft money that politicians, PACs, and parties banked in 2000. Most of this money comes in large bundles from the "economically interested" -- executives and business associates who've been arm-twisted into supporting a corporation's electoral favorites. </p>
<p>Under the new legislation, those bundles will only grow larger. Republican Senator John McCain of Arizona admitted to being embarrassed recently by the disclosure that he took $31,000 from individuals associated with the now bankrupt telecommunications firm Global Crossing as he argued their case before the Federal Communications Commission. Just how tainted would he feel if he got double that amount (allowable under the new limit) from them the next time he runs for president?</p>
<p>After all these years of struggle, why did reformers settle for so little? </p>
<p>In fact, after more than a decade of seeing their more ambitious ideas come to naught even as the amount of money in politics grew exponentially, reformers and their editorial-board allies felt that they desperately needed a win. According to Derek Cressman of USPIRG (the only campaign-finance-reform organization to oppose the bill), Kentucky's Republican Senator "Mitchell McConnell wore down the reform movement by defeating stronger legislation year after year. Legislators kept compromising and the watchdogs let them do that." As a result, the reform package grew steadily weaker. "I can't think of any other legislation that's had a tough fight that ended up actually rolling things back," Cressman says. "This bill could have passed easily 10 years ago."</p>
<p>Speaking not for attribution, some reformers admit that forward movement -- even if only one small step forward -- became their goal. A second factor, perhaps perversely, was the Democrats' growing proficiency at raising big money themselves -- a skill that may have lulled them about the political ramifications of Shays-Meehan. Buoyed by near-parity with the GOP in soft-money fundraising, the Democrats generally -- and party chairman Terry McAuliffe particularly -- came to believe that they could compete in the hard-money game, too. That made the bill's tradeoff between hard money and soft money acceptable. </p>
<p>As the proposed reforms grew steadily more modest, their appeal to the center and center-right grew. Moderate Republicans in the Senate and the House took the lead and the Democrats stood back to let them carry the fight. A seemingly enlightened segment of the business community, some of whom were executives tired of being dunned for six-figure checks, jumped on the bandwagon out of their own self-interest. The scope of reform dwindled until hardly anything remained at all. </p>
<p>There should be nothing surprising in the spectacle of White House Press Secretary Ari Fleischer trying to steal credit for the bill on behalf of his boss. And why shouldn't Bush sign it? Shays-Meehan favors Republicans. The GOP outraised the Democrats in the 2000 cycle $466 million to $275 million; and in just released figures for the current election cycle, the Republicans are leading the Democrats in hard money $131 million to $60 million. Moreover, Shays-Meehan certainly favors the incumbent president in his 2004 campaign. Bush is a hard-money dynamo: In 2000 he raised $103 million in hard-money donations for the primaries alone, while sitting veep Al Gore raised a paltry $46 million in hard money. Worse yet, signing Shays-Meehan helps to inoculate Bush from the taint of Enron's political money. Nonetheless, Bush taking credit for campaign finance reform, notes Public Campaign analyst Micah Sifry, is "like Harry Truman claiming credit for sparking the nuclear-disarmament movement by dropping the bomb on Hiroshima." </p>
<p>But this dubious victory may hold the seeds of more sweeping changes. One thing is certain: The kind of incremental reform that the House has enacted is far from the kind of dramatic change that can actually renew people's faith in our political system. But passing Shays-Meehan at least clarifies the challenge. For years, progressives have endorsed public financing, specifically public financing that covers both primary and general elections. The AFL-CIO has long supported it, and recent converts include the NAACP, the ACLU, the Sierra Club, and the National Organization for Women. The small state experiments in Maine and Arizona have shown what a huge difference it can make. Activists on the national front are poised to move forward. The next victories are likely to come at the state level in judicial elections. Spurred by the American Bar Association's endorsement of full public financing for judicial races, activists in North Carolina, Wisconsin, and Illinois are moving to change their state laws. Public financing of campaigns for the legislature, though further down the road, is most likely in Minnesota, New Mexico, and Connecticut.</p>
<p>Now that soft-money reform is off the table, it's time to focus on the real deal.</p>
</div></div></div>Thu, 07 Mar 2002 01:18:33 +0000142503 at http://prospect.orgEllen MillerLabor's Losshttp://prospect.org/article/labors-loss-0
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<p></p><p>As this year's presidential and congressional elections turn inexorably into high-priced auctions, much attention has been paid to the fact that Democrats have in some respects achieved parity with Republicans in the money chase. According to the Federal Election Commission, as of March 31, Senate Democrats had raised $35.1 million in hard and soft money; Senate Republicans had raised $41.3 million. On the House side, Democrats were nearly even with Republicans in the soft money chase, $25 million to $27.5 million; Republicans were still well ahead in the hard money category, $45.2 million to $20.8 million. </p>
<p></p><p>But while everyone is talking about how this may affect the partisan composition of the next Congress, few people have noticed a more telling underlying change. The gap between business and labor contributions is widening dramatically. </p>
<p>In the last three full election cycles, 1994, 1996, and 1998, business outspent labor every single time in contributions to federal candidates and party committees. In 1994 corporate America spent $8 for every $1 that labor did. In the 1996 and 1998 elections, the ratio was $11 for every $1. The dollar amount of the gap between business and labor spending from the 1994 elections through the 1998 elections nearly doubled, from $307 million to $606 million. So far, in the 2000 election cycle, business is outspending labor by 15 to 1--the gap is already nearly half a billion dollars wide.</p>
<p>This fact is especially striking in light of organized labor's newfound energy and muscle. Of course, there's no doubt that "people power" can occasionally beat "money power" in politics, particularly when an issue is popular and receiving widespread attention. Witness the passage of a dollar increase in the minimum wage in 1996 by the Republican-controlled Congress. But the bottom-line picture for labor on Capitol Hill is not great.</p>
<p>Not a single member of the U.S. Senate received more contributions from labor interests than from business interests between 1993 and 1998, a full Senate election cycle. Only 20 members of the House of Representatives--5 percent--received more campaign funds from labor than from business during the 1998 elections.</p>
<p>Here's another angle. In the 1998 elections, the average amount spent by a winning candidate for the House of Representatives was $650,428. Only six members of the House received $325,000 or more--half of the average winning amount spent--from labor interests, and the most any winning candidate received from labor was $448,000. In contrast, 15 winning House members received $1 million or more from business interests; 126 received $500,000 or more; and 239--more than half of the House membership, including 92 Democrats-- received $325,000 or more. </p>
<p>What's at stake? The recent battle over China trade is a case in point. On May 24, the House voted 237 to 197 to grant permanent normal trade status to China, despite fierce opposition by organized labor. House members who voted "yes" received an average of $44,000 in PAC and individual donations this election cycle from members of the Business Roundtable, which lobbied hard for passage of the bill, according to an analysis by the Center for Responsive Politics. Members who voted "no" received an average of $25,000. The 200-plus companies in the Business Roundtable outspent labor easily, giving more than $58 million to candidates and parties in the 2000 election cycle to date, while labor has given approximately $31 million. The source of a lawmaker's money made a difference. Among the 188 legislators who received more campaign money from labor than from business interests, 73 percent voted "no."</p>
<p>Judging by a new policy statement issued by the AFL-CIO's executive board, organized labor is coming to understand that campaign finance reform is an urgent priority--even for a group that has long been an effective player in the money game. The statement endorsed full public financing for congressional elections, including primaries, as well as limits on individual contributions and a ban on soft money. But, as we'll describe in our next column, while the issue of reform continues to percolate on Capitol Hill, there is a proposal lurking, backed by some Democrats as well as Republicans, that would raise contribution limits and tilt the playing field even further from labor and working people.</p>
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<p>More than a year after the massacre at Columbine High School in Littleton, Colorado, Congress remains unwilling to pass even the most incremental legislation controlling access to lethal weapons. There is no better explanation for that than the role of money in politics. &#13;</p>
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<p>Take the current impasse over the waiting period for background checks on purchases made at gun shows. Last May, in the wake of the Littleton shootings, the Senate voted by 51-50 (with Al Gore casting the tie-breaker) for a three-day waiting period on gun show purchases. Three out of four of the guns used in the Columbine attack were purchased at Denver-area gun shows. The House then adopted an amendment to limit the check to 24 hours, and then killed the bill carrying it. A glance at the money trail is instructive. &#13;</p>
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The 44 senators who said "no" to strong background checks on three separate roll call votes over the course of a week last May were the benefici-aries, on average, of nearly 29 times more campaign cash from gun rights groups than the 40 senators who said "yes" on all three votes. The average take for gun rights supporters was $23,340, compared to $815 for the other side. That includes PAC money, itemized individual contributions, and independent expenditures and communications spending on behalf of senators from 1995 through 2000. The same pattern holds true in the House of Representatives. The 212 House members who voted the National Rifle Association's way on two roll call votes were the beneficiaries of 31 times more campaign cash from gun rights groups than the 189 members who voted in favor of background checks--$11,195 to $355. That includes contributions from 1997 through 2000. &#13;</p>
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Overall, during that period, political action committees and individuals opposing gun control spent $2.3 mil-lion on TV commercials and other independent expenditures aimed at electing candidates opposed to gun control. That's on top of the $3.5 mil-lion given outright to federal candidates and parties. &#13;</p>
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During that same period, the gun control side has given a total of $235,000 to federal candidates and parties, and has spent another $22,000 in independent expenditures on behalf of candidates supportive of stricter regulations. The NRA and its allies outspent gun control groups by a ratio of almost 23 to 1. &#13;</p>
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Nearly 90 percent of the public believe that gun owners should be required to obtain licenses, according to the University of Chicago's nonpartisan National Opinion Research Center. Overwhelming majorities also favor restricting individual gun purchases to no more than one a month and requiring safety training for gun purchasers. And 72 percent of gun owners support criminal background checks on gun buyers; about 66 percent support mandatory registration. &#13;</p>
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Lately, President Clinton has been visiting states that have passed sensible gun control measures to praise them for taking courageous steps against the power of the gun lobby. If he were serious about winning this fight--and not just making it a campaign issue to use against Republicans--he'd be visiting those states that have also passed comprehensive campaign finance reform, like Maine, Vermont, Massachusetts, and Arizona. We're not going to break the power of the gun lobby without tempering the power of its money. &#13;</p>
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Would federal gun policy be different if lawmakers were not dependent on gun money to finance their campaigns? It's hard to believe that legislation would be so at odds with the public's desires if private campaign money were not part of the equation.&#13;</p>
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</div></div></div>Wed, 19 Dec 2001 19:12:15 +0000141744 at http://prospect.orgEllen MillerPay-to-Play Conventionshttp://prospect.org/article/pay-play-conventions
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<p>The Republicans had their time. Then AT&amp;T, Lockheed Martin, and Microsoft packed up the trade show we still call a "political convention" and moved it over to Los Angeles.&#13;</p>
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This year's conventions will cost an estimated $85 million--$25 million more than they did in 1996--and the long list of corporate sponsors to the convention's "host committees" reads like a "who's who" of companies whose profit margins are deeply affected by government decision making.&#13;</p>
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American International Group, which gave half a million dollars to the GOP convention and poured $2 million into the Democratic convention, is lobbying hard for a trade agreement with China. According to the Center for Responsive Politics, the company has already invested millions of dollars setting up offices in China and training Chinese insurance agents. The company is also a generous campaign donor to federal candidates and parties, giving more than $774,000 this election cycle, 58 percent of it to Republicans. &#13;</p>
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General Motors is giving $1 million apiece to the GOP and Democratic conventions, including the free use of hundreds of SUVs and cars. For the past five years, GM, along with the rest of the auto industry, has persuaded Congress to block tough new fuel-efficiency standards for SUVs and light trucks. With gas prices averaging $1.42 per gallon this summer--more than twice the amount they were a year ago--it is consumers who bear the cost of GM's lobbying know-how, by paying exorbitant rates to fill up their gas tanks. We all pay in another way, too: Each gallon of gasoline burned pumps 19 pounds of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere, a major contributor to the greenhouse effect, which causes global warming. GM has contributed nearly half a million dollars to federal candidates and parties for the 2000 elections, 72 percent of it to Republicans. This money matters; senators who voted last year to stall fuel-efficiency standards received more than twice as much campaign money, on average, from the auto lobby as senators who did not. &#13;</p>
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The defense giant Lockheed Martin sells 70 percent of its wares to the federal government. The company is giving $100,000 apiece to the Democratic and GOP conventions on top of the $1.2 million given to candidates and parties (61 percent of which has gone to Republicans). Hugh Burns, a corporate spokesman, told <i>The Washington Post</i> that the contributions to the conventions is "part of good government--we support the democratic process."&#13;</p>
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Step back and remember why this is troubling. It's because the people living in Watts have contributed a grand total of $2,750 to federal candidates and parties for the 2000 elections. It's because only one-tenth of 1 percent of the entire U.S. population gives a contribution of $1,000 or more, and the great majority of donors are white males, age 45 or older, whose incomes are more than $100,000 a year.&#13;</p>
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The 2000 elections are expected to cost $3 billion. To put the $3 billion in perspective, it is 10 percent more than was spent in 1996, the year of the last presidential race, 46 percent more than in 1992, and 87 percent more than in 1988. According to the Children's Defense Fund, $3 billion is enough to pay for the upbringing of more than 19,000 children, from the time they are born until they are ready to go away to college at age 18.&#13;</p>
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Contrast all this with Maine, where 121 candidates on the ballot this November have signed up to use full public financing under the new Clean Election Act, as long as they agree not to raise any private money. For these candidates, there is no hobnobbing with campaign donors or getting freebies from corporate America. Instead, these candidates are spending time actually campaigning on their ideas, thanks to the freedom the state's voters gave them from the money chase. In Arizona, Vermont, and Massachusetts, a clean-money system is also state law. A grand experiment is underway--an experiment in which it is not money that will determine who wins and what they do after election day.&#13;</p>
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</center></div></div></div>Wed, 19 Dec 2001 19:08:07 +0000141724 at http://prospect.orgEllen MillerWho Gives?http://prospect.org/article/who-gives
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Considering the almost hour-by-hour polling of the nation's voters, it's amazing how little is done to survey the views and backgrounds of the people who really matter in American politics: the elite class of political donors. &#13;</p>
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Thus, an unusual <a href="http://past.thenation.com/e2k/recent/poll-pr.shtml">survey</a> conducted this summer is worth hailing. The poll compared a sample of 200 political contributors (half had contributed at least $5,000 to Democrats and the other half had given at least $5,000 to Republicans) with a general pool of 1,000 registered voters. The survey was conducted by <a href="http://www.lspa.com/">Lake Snell Perry &amp; Associates</a> for the Institute for America's Future and the <a href="http://www.nationinstitute.org/">Nation Institute</a>. &#13;</p>
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The donor class is not like the rest of us--that much is clear. Nearly three-quarters of the big-money contributors in this poll (which used conventional random-sampling methods after the original pool of names was drawn from Federal Election Commission records) were male, compared to 48 percent of the voters. And the donors were significantly older and more right-leaning than the general public. Only 20 percent of the donors were under the age of 44, compared to about half the voters. And perhaps most telling, when asked about their own economic standing, a whopping 80 percent of the donors said that "the current economic boom has reached people like [them]." By comparison, just 42 percent of registered voters said the boom has reached them; 54 percent said it has not.&#13;</p>
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These findings track fairly well with a 1997 survey of congressional campaign donors financed by the <a href="http://www.joycefdn.org/home.htm">Joyce Foundation</a> and conducted by a team led by John Green of the <a href="http://www.uakron.edu/">University of Akron</a>. Their poll of more than 1,100 donors who gave $200 or more in the 1996 election discovered that this group was overwhelmingly male (81 percent), white (95 percent), old (only 12 percent were under 45), and rich. More than four in five claimed an annual income of $100,000 or more. Only 6 percent of the overall population declares that level of income to the IRS. Fifty percent were Republicans. &#13;</p>
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There are many interesting insights to be teased out of the Lake poll, several of which were discussed in an <a href="http://past.thenation.com/e2k/recent/poll.shtml">article</a> in the August 21-28 issue of <i>The Nation</i> by Celinda Lake and Robert Borosage, who oversaw the survey. As Lake and Borosage point out, there is a huge gap between voters and donors on major public policies. They disagree by large margins about such issues as free trade, permanent normal trade relations with China, and the partial privatization of Social Security. These disagreements exist in both parties. But the gap is more pronounced among Republicans. For example, fully twice as many Republican donors (56 percent) as voters (28 percent) said they "strongly favor" the partial privatization of Social Security. Among Democrats, the disparity on this issue is smaller, with just 20 percent of donors and 13 percent of voters favoring such a major change. &#13;</p>
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Almost half the Republican donors said they think large businesses and corporations have "the right amount" of influence on the federal government. By contrast, 68 percent of Republican voters think big business has too much influence, mirroring the views of Democratic donors (63 percent) and voters (78 percent). Asked about the <a href="http://www.lockheedmartin.com/">Lockheed Martin Corporation</a>'s having received more than $12 billion in prime government contracts after spending $8.2 million on lobbying and campaign contributions, most voters (71 percent)--including Republican voters (66 percent)--said this was "legalized bribery." But only 32 percent of Republican donors agreed with that statement. A majority said this was "a normal and ethical way to do business." &#13;</p>
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Two other intriguing nuggets: In light of a similar survey Lake and Borosage conducted four years ago, the donor class seems to have tempered some of its views of free trade and laissez-faire. Perhaps the protests against globalization that burst out last year in Seattle have affected some fat cats. For example, the percentage of donors who say that "most government regulations go too far now, making it too difficult for companies to grow and create jobs," dropped from 58 percent in 1996 to 45 percent today. The percentage saying that free trade agreements create more jobs in the United States than they cost also dropped 10 points from 1996. &#13;</p>
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Finally, there's sobering news for anyone who thinks voter turnout will be spurred by the close contest between George W. Bush and Al Gore. Registered voters prefer that the budget surplus be spent on investing in education and better public schools (the choice of 32 percent) and expanding health care coverage to more of the uninsured (29 percent) rather than providing an across-the-board tax cut (18 percent), paying down the national debt (15 percent), or increasing military spending (4 percent). But Bush has made the tax cut his number-one priority, and Gore makes rousing calls to pay down the debt--measures favored by more than half the donor class. Hmmm. When voters are offered the choice of ratifying an agenda already set by the donors (who voted last year with their dollars), is it any wonder that half of them won't bother to vote this fall?&#13;</p>
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</center></div></div></div>Wed, 19 Dec 2001 19:08:07 +0000141795 at http://prospect.orgEllen MillerClean Elections, How Tohttp://prospect.org/article/clean-elections-how
<div class="field field-name-body field-type-text-with-summary field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even"> <p><font class="nonprinting"><font size="+2">T</font>he 1996 elections for Congress and the presidency cost close to $2 billion, and produced a turnout of just 48 percent. Some say the late-breaking Democratic money scandals cost the Democrats the House. There is little question that the price we all paid was increasing disdain for the political system. We now have a rare political opportunity as Congress reconvenes to revisit proposals and strategies for campaign finance reform. </font></p>
<p><font class="nonprinting"><img align="Right" alt="*" border="0" height="142" hspace="5" src="../images/30covbug.jpg" vspace="5" width="144" />But beware "bipartisan" reforms. Both parties have colluded in a system that has generated record sums of special-interest money. A better concept is nonpartisan reform. And we know that for truly far-reaching and clean-sweeping reform to be enacted, the public must be fully mobilized to support it. </font></p>
<p><font class="nonprinting">The record of failed reform attempts in Congress over the last 20 years offers a clear lesson: Packages of piecemeal reforms do not generate the requisite public enthusiasm. The first task is to frame the outcome we seek, to define where reform ultimately has to take us, and to find a solution that directly confronts the real problems. And the real problems are too much money; too much time spent raising money; the money's influence over lawmakers by the special interests who contribute it; and the reality that good people don't have a fair chance of winning without the money. </font></p>
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<hr /><h3><font class="nonprinting">NO MORE DIRTY LAUNDERING</font></h3>
<p><font class="nonprinting">American voters today are more supportive of dramatic campaign finance reform than at any time since Watergate. This conclusion is drawn from a comprehensive research study undertaken for the Center for Responsive Politics in July and August by the Mellman Group. </font></p>
<p><font class="nonprinting">Citizens believe that Washington's failure to address their problems is the direct result of politicians accepting too much campaign money from special interests and bowing to the agendas of those who write the checks. They believe that special interests have more control over Washington's agenda than the President and Congress combined. Further, they believe that the campaign finance system today discourages good people from running and makes it too difficult for the few who do. </font></p>
<p><font class="nonprinting">Campaign finance reform has not yet become citizens' top priority. But when citizens are asked what they don't like about the political system, their overwhelming response is "the money." The citizens in the Mellman-Center for Responsive Politics' focus groups and national poll overwhelming embraced, over other options, a proposal in which candidates would no longer raise money from private sources. Instead, each candidate would receive a set amount of money from a publicly financed election fund and spending would be limited to that amount. This approach, modeled on a Maine ballot initiative that was successful in November, is consistent with the <i>Buckley v. Valeo</i> decision of the Supreme Court. Fully 65 percent supported such a proposal after hearing all the arguments for and against it. Voters saw this Clean Money Option as the best step toward solving the problem of special-interest influence in Washington. </font></p>
<p><font class="nonprinting">Other recent research efforts have corroborated this public sentiment. The Harwood Group and the League of Women Voters conducted a series of lengthy discussions with citizens throughout 1996 that concluded that voluntary full public financing was the best option. Brad Bannon's 1994 polls in five states found majorities in each who backed the same proposal. A Gallup poll conducted in late October 1996 found that 65 percent of the respondents favored full public financing, with only 27 percent dissenting. The Gallup Organization has asked its question repeatedly since 1974 and its current findings reflect the highest level of support for public funding since the aftermath of Watergate. In none of the Gallup surveys since 1974 has support for public financing dipped below 50 percent. </font></p>
<hr size="1" /><center><font class="nonprinting"><a href="/subscribe/"><img alt="Subscribe to The American Prospect" border="0" src="/tapads/mini_subscribe.gif" /></a> </font></center><br /><hr size="1" /><h3><font class="nonprinting">THE "CLEAN MONEY OPTION"</font></h3>
<p><font class="nonprinting">The Working Group on Electoral Democracy, an informal association of longtime public policy activists from various parts of the country, developed the Clean Money model reform for congressional elections several years ago. It has been adapted by state-based campaign finance reform activists and was the basis of a proposal for state elections that was enacted by Maine voters, by a margin of 56 to 44. Under this system, once candidates pass a carefully determined qualification threshold, they receive a fixed amount of public money for their campaigns. (For example, candidates for the U.S. House of Representatives would receive $150,000 for the primary and $200,000 for the general election, with additional money available to protect against excessive private spending.) This would eliminate the need to raise private money, and thus eliminate the inherent conflicts of interest that arise when the campaigns of public servants are privately financed. </font></p>
<p><font class="nonprinting">Public financing is made available for a candidate's entire campaign, beginning with the primary and running through the general election and any runoff. To be eligible for this "Clean Money," congressional candidates would be required to raise a relatively large number of five-dollar "qualifying contributions" from within his or her election district. Eligibility would also be conditioned on candidates' agreement not to raise or spend any private money whatsoever during the primary and general election periods, and thus to limit their spending to the fixed amount of public funding they receive. </font></p>
<p><font class="nonprinting">Prior to the beginning of the primary, however, prospective congressional candidates would be allowed to raise a limited amount of private, "seed" money, with a $100 per donor limitation on contributions. This money could only be spent on the start-up costs of qualifying for public financing, and couldn't be spent during the primary or general election periods. All the candidates running for the same office who met the qualifying test would receive equal amounts of public financing. </font></p>
<p><font class="nonprinting">This system would be strictly voluntary, to conform to the Supreme Court's 1976 <i>Buckley v. Valeo</i> decision, which allows candidates to spend unlimited amounts of their own money. Candidates would be free to reject the Clean Money Option and raise private money, or to use their own money to finance their campaigns. However, judging from the participation rate in the system of partial public financing for presidential elections, the great majority of congressional candidates capable of financing their own campaigns are very likely to choose public financing instead, once such an option is in place. Of the dozens of Republican and Democratic candidates who have run for president since 1976, only John Connolly (in 1976), Ross Perot (in 1992), and Steve Forbes (in 1996) have rejected public financing in favor of spending (or raising, in the case of Connolly ) their own money. Of these three candidates, Connolly and Forbes lost badly in the primaries, and Perot, who lost in the general election in 1992, decided to accept public financing in 1996. The participation rates are likely to be even higher for a system that offers <i>full</i> public financing. </font></p>
<p><font class="nonprinting">As part of a Clean Money Option, soft money of the kind that now undermines the integrity of the presidential system (because it is used not for generic "party-building" purposes as officially intended, but to support particular federal candidates) would be banned. In addition, with a Clean Money Option, publicly financed candidates who are outspent by privately financed opponents receive additional, "equalizing" funds. In the version just approved by Maine voters, the additional funding is capped at 100 percent of the original amount received, but a higher cap could be set for federal elections. This cap protects the Clean Money fund from being depleted by "the sky's the limit" private spending. </font></p>
<p><font class="nonprinting">The problem of independent expenditures is addressed in a similar way. Candidates targeted by such expenditures, as determined by the Federal Election Commission, would receive the same kind of equalizing funds. This, of course, does not mean the disappearance of independent expenditures, including those the political parties are now making on behalf of their own candidates thanks to a new loophole recently opened up by the Supreme Court in <i>Colorado Republican Campaign Committee v. Federal Election Commission</i>. (In this controversial June 1996 decision, the Court declared that political parties should have the same right to make independent expenditures that individuals and other political committees enjoy, so long as there is no coordination or communication between the parties and their candidates.) However, there is a high likelihood that the equalizing provision will reduce these expenditures because opponents will be able to match them with public money. Also, in a Clean Money Option environment in which all candidates have the opportunity to "just say no" to special-interest money and receive full and equal amounts of public financing, there is likely to be strong voter disapproval of independent spenders who try to circumvent the new system and also disapproval of the candidates they are trying to help. </font></p>
<p> </p>
<hr /><h3><font class="nonprinting">FAILURE OF OTHER APPROACHES</font></h3>
<p><font class="nonprinting">Several alternative approaches have lately been proposed, ranging from a constitutional amendment overturning <i>Buckley v. Valeo</i> to a variety of piecemeal strategies. But there is no viable alternative that would bring down the cost of campaigns, free candidates and elected officials from the incessant "money chase," and, most importantly, end their dependency on special-interest contributors. </font></p>
<p><font class="nonprinting">Establishing low limits on individual contributions has popular appeal and has been approved by voters for state elections in several states. This approach commendably pushes wealthy donors away from candidates, but it forces candidates to spend even more time raising money. In the two locales where it has actually been tried, Washington, D.C., and Oregon, it appears to have led to an explosion of independent expenditures and other methods of end-running the system. Federal courts have subsequently declared unconstitutional both the Washington, D.C., law and a similar measure that was passed by ballot initiative, but never put into effect, in Missouri. </font></p>
<p><font class="nonprinting">Attempts to provide only partial public financing have not been very successful either. Twenty-three states have some form of partial public financing on their books, but in practice only nine states are able to provide even limited funds to statewide candidates, and only three states provide partial public financing to legislative candidates. The partial public financing system for presidential races that provides matching public financing in the primary and purportedly full public financing for the general election is equally ineffective. Of the approximate $800 million spent on this year's presidential contest, more than $225 million came from "soft" (unregulated) contributions by large private donors, including some possibly illegal sources. </font></p>
<p><font class="nonprinting">Unfortunately, the McCain-Feingold bill, which went down to resounding bipartisan defeat earlier this year and which its co-sponsors stand ready to reintroduce in January, is another such package. Its complex combination of limits and incentives—seen by many inside the Beltway as the most possible winnable reform—does not represent a compelling, or even comprehensible, solution. No one thinks that the McCain-Feingold bill goes far enough—not even its sponsors. The bill is incomplete because the most pernicious influence of money—the checks handed over by special interests to candidates—isn't dealt with comprehensively. </font></p>
<p><font class="nonprinting"><font size="+2">A</font>lthough McCain-Feingold provides discounted television advertising and mail rates to candidates who agree to various voluntary limits, it offers no public financing and thus perpetuates a system in which candidates will spend lots of time raising money from the same private interests as before. In addition, the voluntary limits on overall campaign spending and the percentage of money candidates can receive from PACs and out-of-state contributors are set at above the average amounts currently being spent or raised. </font></p>
<p><font class="nonprinting">The McCain-Feingold provisions for limiting soft money and tightening the definition of "independent expenditures" are important and worthy. But by focusing primarily on restricting PAC and out-of-state contributions, the bill ignores a basic reality—namely, that in a society in which wealth is so unevenly distributed, any campaign finance system that requires candidates to raise large sums of private money is bound to be rife with conflicts of interest and unfair to people without access to wealth. </font></p>
<p><font class="nonprinting"><i>Buckley v. Valeo</i> makes reform difficult, by forbidding mandatory limits on overall campaign spending and by granting constitutional "free speech" protections to contributions by wealthy candidates to their own campaigns, as well as independent expenditures. It is for this reason that former Senator Bill Bradley and many others see the need for a constitutional amendment to overturn <i>Buckley</i>. But the road to achieving a constitutional amendment is long and arduous, and for most who have tried to go down it—including, in recent times, advocates of term limits, equal rights for women and men, and a ban on flag burning—the result has been failure. Moreover, an amendment that truly limited all independent expenditures could well threaten legitimate First Amendment rights, such as the right of a newspaper to endorse or oppose a candidate or the rights of citizen groups to run paid advertisements on public issues. </font></p>
<p><font class="nonprinting">The Clean Money Option provides the best solution to the core problem of money in politics—the influence of private money given directly to candidates for public office. Not only is it constitutional (because it is voluntary), but it is also both comprehensive and comprehensible, enjoying a combination of sweeping effect and simplicity of design that is rare in public policy debates. Limiting campaign spending, reducing government favors to special interests, and leveling the playing field to give good candidates a fair chance of being elected are the goals that drive public support for this proposal. </font></p>
<p><font class="nonprinting">It is highly improbable that the Clean Money Option would pass Congress today. But within two to four years, conventional wisdom and the political environment can be changed. The Clean Money Option is increasingly the focus of reform efforts outside of Washington. Maine's success will make that state a beacon for others. Nearly a dozen states have some kind of a full public financing proposal under legislative consideration or headed for the ballot. </font></p>
<p><font class="nonprinting">Editorial endorsements of the Clean Money Option and the notion that campaign finance reform has to be broad and deep are appearing in the national and regional press, including <i>USA Today</i>, the <i>Boston Globe</i>, the<i> Minneapolis Star-Tribune</i>, the <i>St. Louis Post Dispatch</i>, the <i>Hartford Courant</i>, the <i>Rutland </i>[Vermont] <i>Herald</i>, and the <i>Portland</i> [Maine] <i>Press Herald</i>. The <i>Boston Globe</i> editorialized that the "Maine plan" ought to be considered a "blueprint" for national reform. </font></p>
<p><font class="nonprinting">Other public policy debates illustrate what can be achieved. The recent minimum-wage increase serves as a striking example of what can happen when strong public support is effectively engaged in a high-profile policy debate. A year ago, the polling numbers on increasing the minimum wage were quite similar to those today on the Clean Money Option, yet conventional wisdom suggested that Congress, and particularly Republicans, would never vote for it. However, once the President, Democrats in the Congress, moderate Republicans, and outside advocates raised their voices in support of an increase, the latent public support became a potent political weapon. The minimum-wage increase passed, in part, because it was a symbol by which citizens judged Congress's commitment to working families most in need. In this same way, the Clean Money Option can pass if reformers make it a test of Congress's integrity and willingness to divorce itself from special-interest money. </font></p>
<p><font class="nonprinting">No solution closes all channels of monied influence, but the Clean Money Option blocks the most destructive path, that of large sums of money changing hands directly between special interests and candidates. Piecemeal steps leave this channel open, ultimately reducing reform to little more than minor legislative obstacles for special interests to avoid. </font></p>
<!-- LINKS BLOCK--><p><a name="Links" id="Links"></a> </p>
<p></p><center><br /><table border="1" cellpadding="10" cellspacing="2" width="400"><tbody><tr><td align="left" valign="middle" width="400"><center><font class="nonprinting"><b><font size="+2">Related Resources</font></b></font></center><br clear="ALL" /><font class="nonprinting"><font size="-1"><font size="+1"><a href="http://www.crp.org/reform/ellen1.html">Results of The Mellman Group's Study</a></font><br />for the <a href="http://www.crp.org" target="_blank">Center for Responsive Politics</a> on <a href="http://www.crp.org/net/frreform.html">Campaign Finace Reform</a> </font></font>
<p><font class="nonprinting"><font size="-1"><font size="+1"><a href="http://www.crp.org/1996elect/contents.html">CRP's Race-by-Race Funding Analysis</a></font><br />of the 1996 Congressional Elections </font></font></p>
<p><font class="nonprinting"><font size="-1"><font size="+1"><a href="http://www.law.cornell.edu/supct/cases/name.htm">Buckley v. Valeo</a> </font> </font></font></p>
<p><font class="nonprinting"><font size="-1"><font size="+1"><a href="http://www.fec.gov/">Federal Election Commission</a></font> </font> </font></p>
</td>
</tr></tbody></table><p></p></center><br /><!-- dhandler for print articles --></div></div></div>Wed, 19 Dec 2001 19:08:06 +0000141175 at http://prospect.orgEllen MillerReform You Can Take to the Bankhttp://prospect.org/article/reform-you-can-take-bank
<div class="field field-name-body field-type-text-with-summary field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even"> <p>At its core, the McCain-Feingold bill was about getting rid of soft money. So<br />
far, so good. But as part of the deal, the Senate voted to hike hard-money<br />
limits. The Senate has thus exacerbated the money-and-politics problem. Assuming<br />
that the bill becomes law, we can expect a future in which campaign costs soar,<br />
elite donors tighten their grip on lawmakers, special interests get a bigger<br />
payback from politicians, and incumbents remain entrenched. </p>
<p>
So much for the promise of campaign finance reform. </p>
<p>
As we have followed the money trail, we have seen how incumbents beat challengers<br />
at the fundraising game. In 2000, Senate incumbents outraised challengers in hard<br />
money by a ratio of nearly 2 to 1, according to the Center for Responsive<br />
Politics. (The gap is even starker in contributions from high-level hard-money<br />
donors, the very ones likely to take advantage of the new $2,000 per-candidate,<br />
per-election limits.) The incumbents raised an average of $1.8 million from<br />
donors of at least $1,000. By comparison, their challengers raised an average of<br />
just $646,000 from this same group of donors. Of the four liberal Democrats who<br />
picked up Senate seats in 2000, two were reliant on huge private fortunes. If<br />
high-level donors give more, as they surely will since the new rules encourage<br />
doing so, it is clear that incumbents will benefit the most.</p>
<p>
And the wealthy will dominate like never before. Today the tiny donor class of<br />
people who gave $1,000 or more to a federal candidate comprises only one-eighth<br />
of 1 percent of the voting population. They already get a huge return on their<br />
investment. Most of them give because they have parochial interests in the laws<br />
that elected officials are charged with making. The hike in the amount of hard<br />
money an individual can give to candidates, coupled with a second McCain-Feingold<br />
provision that ups the overall limits that individuals may give to federal<br />
politicians in a calendar year from $25,000 to $37,500, means that a couple with<br />
two children could actually dole out $300,000 over an election cycle. Now that's<br />
soft-money-size influence.</p>
<p>
If you doubt that campaign contributors will figure this out, consider what<br />
happens already under the current campaign finance rules. MBNA America Bank is<br />
poised to be one of the biggest beneficiaries of bankruptcy reform legislation<br />
that was recently passed by Congress and is sure to be signed by the president.<br />
Now, follow the money. Charles Cawley, the company's CEO, is one of President<br />
George W. Bush's "Pioneers," the volunteer fundraisers who pledged to raise at<br />
least $100,000 apiece for his election. Overall, MBNA employees, their family<br />
members, and the company's political action committee bundled $240,700 to the<br />
president's campaign--all hard cash. They also bundled $365,725 to members of the<br />
Senate Judiciary Committee, which had jurisdiction over the bill. Altogether,<br />
MBNA contributed about $2.3 million in hard money to candidates and parties in<br />
the 2000 elections. Under McCain-Feingold, there is no question that such bundles<br />
will get bigger. </p>
<p>
Multiply the campaign finance power of MBNA times hundreds of industry groupings<br />
and you get a good idea of who calls the shots in Washington. In the 2000<br />
elections, oil-and-gas companies distributed $33 million to candidates and<br />
parties in hard and soft money. Electric utilities gave $19 million. The mining<br />
industry gave $6.6 million. Stack all that money next to the $1.4 million given<br />
by environmental groups and you realize the kind of horrific imbalances that will<br />
result if the contribution limits are doubled. McCain-Feingold doesn't change any<br />
of that.</p>
<p>
The incumbent-protection package our elected officials call "campaign finance<br />
reform" does have a silver lining: Once the self-congratulation dies down, the<br />
escalation of raising abuses will help make the case to the American public that<br />
what we need is comprehensive reform of the entire way we finance elections. </p>
<p> </p></div></div></div>Wed, 19 Dec 2001 19:04:41 +0000141313 at http://prospect.orgEllen MillerThe Care and Feeding of Fat Catshttp://prospect.org/article/care-and-feeding-fat-cats
<div class="field field-name-body field-type-text-with-summary field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even"> <p><font class="nonprinting articlebody">&#13;<br />
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<p>Last issue ["Labor's Loss," August 14, 2000], we described how, in the race for campaign dollars, business is outpacing labor by an increasingly wide margin: eight to one in 1994, 11 to one in 1996 and 1998, and 15 to one in the 2000 election cycle, according to the Center for Responsive Politics. The contribution gap between business and labor is nearly half a billion dollars wide: $521 million to $35 million.&#13;<br />
&#13;<br />
&#13;</p>
<p>This suggests that no matter which party is in control of Congress after November 7, members will be beholden more to business donors than to labor interests. This imbalance helps explain why Congress has rushed to eliminate the inheritance tax on all large estates, which would cost the Treasury $50 billion and benefit a tiny number of very wealthy families. And it also explains why the House just voted, once again, to delay the implementation of new "ergonomic" safety rules promulgated by the Occupational Safety and Health Administration to prevent repetitive-stress injuries on the job.&#13;</p>
<p>&#13;<br />
&#13;<br />
What many people don't realize is that the contribution gap could get worse if proposals being advanced by self-styled "centrist" reformers and "moderate" congressmen become law. Their idea is seductive: Let's raise the individual contribution limit, which is currently $1,000 per year, to $3,000. After all, proponents like Norman Ornstein of the American Enterprise Institute argue, the limit hasn't been changed since 1974, and $1,000 then is the equivalent of about $300 today.&#13;</p>
<p>&#13;<br />
&#13;<br />
Furthermore, they say, such a move makes sense if soft money--the unlim-ited, unregulated contributions made to parties--is banned. The leading bill to raise limits is currently being considered by the Senate Rules Committee, chaired by big money's best friend, Senator Mitch McConnell of Kentucky (who has hinted that he may send the bill to the Senate floor without committee review). It is cosponsored by Republican Senator Chuck Hagel and Democratic Senator Bob Kerrey.&#13;</p>
<p>&#13;<br />
&#13;<br />
But consider what this would mean in the business-labor context. Business interests get more of their clout from large individual contributions of $1,000 than labor does. Of the $666.6 million contributed by corporate America in the 1998 elections, half came in the form of large contributions of $200 or more from executives and their families. In contrast, less than half of 1 percent of labor's $60.8 million came in the form of large contributions. Business outpaces labor here by more than 1,000 to one. Labor's clout comes largely from its PACs, some of which are quite successful. For example, the number-one overall donor in the 1998 cycle was the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees (AFSCME), which contributed nearly $4 million to candidates and parties. AFSCME--like most unions--raises this impressive sum the hard way, through small contributions under $200. Indeed, according to reports filed by the union with the Federal Election Commission, 77 percent of the funds collected by the PAC in the 1998 election cycle came in small contributions.&#13;</p>
<p>&#13;<br />
&#13;<br />
By law, however, PACs are limited to contributing $10,000 per candidate per election ($5,000 for the primary, $5,000 for the election). So no one candidate got more than $10,000 from AFSCME's PAC. In contrast, though an individual may give no more than $2,000 per candidate per election cycle, corporations have been immensely successful in "bundling" contributions from numerous executives to a particular candidate.&#13;</p>
<p>&#13;<br />
&#13;<br />
In the 1998 elections, at least 116,930 business executives and family members made contributions of $1,000 or more to candidates and parties, compared to 118 labor contributors giving $1,000 or more. If all of these donors tripled their contributions, the gap between business and labor would be over $1 billion.&#13;</p>
<p>&#13;<br />
&#13;<br />
Though business outspends labor in soft money, the ratio is not nearly as extreme. In the 1998 election cycle, business outspent labor by 16 to one in soft money contributions: $167.2 million versus $10.3 million. Though labor would benefit from a soft money ban because of the simple fact that it is impossible to compete with business, a combination of a soft money ban with an increase in individual contribution limits would affect labor more adversely than it would business.&#13;</p>
<p>&#13;<br />
&#13;<br />
The lesson is simple: When it comes to reform proposals pitched as "compromises," let the buyer beware.&#13;</p>
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</center></div></div></div>Wed, 19 Dec 2001 19:04:41 +0000141750 at http://prospect.orgEllen MillerSwearing Off Soft Money - Sort Ofhttp://prospect.org/article/swearing-soft-money-sort
<div class="field field-name-body field-type-text-with-summary field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even"> <p><font class="nonprinting articlebody">&#13;<br />
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<p>As the most expensive Senate race in the country ($63.4 million raised by all candidates as of September 20), the New York contest between <a href="http://www.hillary2000.org">Hillary Rodham Clinton</a>&#13;<br />
and Republican Representative <a href="http://www.lazio.com">Rick Lazio</a> is drawing almost as much attention as the presidential campaign. Lazio made news by challenging Clinton, in the midst of their first televised debate, to agree to an immediate ban on using soft money--the large chunks of unregulated contributions that are funneled through parties or independent groups--to pay for their broadcast ads. After much to-ing and fro-ing, Clinton agreed, setting off a wave of copycat gestures. Al Gore renewed his pledge to renounce soft money if George W. Bush did, and software millionaire <a href="http://www.cantwell2000.com">Maria Cantwell</a>, the Democratic Senate nominee in Washington State, made a similar call in her race.&#13;</p>
<p>&#13;<br />
&#13;<br />
What's really going on here? It could be that politicians are starting to realize that voters do care about money in politics. In John McCain's campaign last spring, a slew of independent and Democratic voters crossed over to support the Republican maverick. And exit polls showed an average of 10 percent of Republican primary voters naming campaign finance reform as their number-one reason for voting--higher than those picking abortion or education. As Clinton and Lazio, and Gore and Bush, battle for the last few independent-minded voters who haven't made up their minds, the candidates' internal polls are undoubtedly showing something similar.&#13;</p>
<p>&#13;<br />
&#13;<br />
Here's one intriguing indication of how the money issue is playing. Last May the <a href="http://www.workingfamiliesparty.org">New York Working Families Party</a>, a new progressive organization closely aligned with labor and community groups, was looking for ways to attract swing voters outside of New York City to vote for Hillary Clinton on their ballot line. The poll they commissioned, by the Global Strategy Group, surveyed upstate and suburban voters who were not regular Republicans--in other words, the very swing group of independents and wavering Democrats who may decide this fall's contest. Forty-four percent of this group agreed that neither Democrats nor Republicans were doing a good job "reducing the political influence of the big-money special interests through campaign finance reform." Clearly, being seen as the "reform" candidate can pay political dividends.&#13;</p>
<p>&#13;<br />
&#13;<br />
The new politics of soft money is full of traps and snares. Much of the commentary about the Clinton-Lazio deal implies that the rest of the money being raised is somehow clean and limited. In fact, so far, Clinton has raised $21.7 million in hard money (plus another $4.4 million for her New York Senate 2000 soft money committee); Lazio has raised $17.8 million in hard dollars and little to none in soft. They share several top donors in common: Executives and employees of the finance giants Citigroup, Goldman Sachs, and AXA Financial are each among Clinton and Lazio's top 10 contributors, according to the <a href="http://www.opensecrets.org">Center for Responsive Politics</a>. Overall, five-sixths of all the money in this election year will come in the form of "hard money" given by a tiny pool of donors, most of whom have special economic interests at work. &#13;</p>
<p>&#13;<br />
&#13;<br />
The deal Clinton and Lazio agreed to--which may well fall apart before election day--is hardly a complete soft money ban. Both candidates are continuing to raise soft money for their respective party committees--which means big donors will still be able to curry favor with their $100,000 checks. Both have called on independent groups supporting them to stop running ads, but if any group does not, the deal allows the other side to respond in kind. And soft money can continue to be spent (and presumably raised) by the party committees on phone banks, direct mail, and get-out-the-vote efforts for each candidate.&#13;</p>
<p>&#13;<br />
&#13;<br />
The bottom line is, candidate-by-candidate, race-by-race agreements are inadequate. These gentleman's agreements, or handshakes, or pledges are no substitute for real systemic change in the financing of elections. &#13;</p>
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</center></div></div></div>Wed, 19 Dec 2001 19:04:41 +0000141796 at http://prospect.orgEllen MillerRescuing Politics from Moneyhttp://prospect.org/article/rescuing-politics-money
<div class="field field-name-body field-type-text-with-summary field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even"> <p><font class="nonprinting articlebody"></font></p>
<p><font color="darkred" size="+2">T</font>his special double issue of the <i>Prospect</i> focuses on money and politics. It is part of a continuing series on this set of topics, which is central to the project of reviving progressive politics. </p>
<p>In this century, there have been successive waves of reform, beginning with the Progressive Era, which sought to constrain the influence of big money on democratic deliberation. The first of these, in 1907, actually enacted a law that banned corporate contributions to political campaigns. But at roughly 20-year intervals, special-interest money has found a way to breach the barriers. Then a new wave of scandals engenders a new set of reforms, and the cycle begins anew. </p>
<p>The stakes are enormous, not just for small-d democratic politics in general but for progressive politics in particular. A dependence on big money pushes the whole political agenda to the right and depresses participation by the one proven antidote--ordinary voters. </p>
<p>The most recent reforms, enacted in the wake of Watergate, have been gutted or rendered irrelevant by court decisions and creative evasion. Soft (unregulated) money and issue advertising by supposedly independent groups have effectively eliminated all constraints on fundraising. Each election cycle, the expenditures per race get higher, while faith in our politicians falls lower. Every recent session of Congress has seen the proposed campaign finance reform legislation of John McCain and Russell Feingold rise, crest, and fall, with the bill getting weaker in each successive (failed) iteration. </p>
<p>Lately, however, there has been some encouraging news--passage of state clean-election laws providing public financing for candidates who qualify, the enactment of a modest federal law to close one egregious loophole that allowed nonprofits to be stealth PACs, the near-miss reform candidacies of John McCain and Bill Bradley, and the apparently sincere embrace by Al Gore of real reform. Even so, both parties are more heavily dependent today on moneyed elites than ever. Countless worthy would-be candidates are driven out of politics by the financial and moral costs of perpetual fundraising. Whole sets of issues are marginalized from political discourse because their champions are financially marginal candidates. Voting participation keeps dropping.</p>
<p>As money becomes the currency of politics, the agenda of the well-to-do crowds out the agenda of ordinary people. Entire issues that might excite voters are excluded from debate. Wealthy donors give to conservatives out of a natural affinity; they give to liberals in the hope of making them less liberal. This dynamic not only gives conservative candidates a financial advantage in elections, but it whipsaws liberals. The need to raise money often blurs political messages and distances progressive candidates from their constituencies--the very people who rely on democratic politics because they don't have a lot of money. </p>
<p>Beyond the ideological and partisan implications, the never-ending arms race of money damages both parties and puts politicians up for auction, eroding not just the connection between the political class and the citizenry, but our faith in the political system. </p>
<p>Can this vicious circle be broken? Can we take back democratic politics from donors and fundraisers? We began by posing the question to four veterans, each with long experience on different fronts in the battle for political reform. Campaign finance reformers must feel like Sisyphus, doomed to push a rock up a hill for all eternity, only to have it roll back down. The editors of <i>TAP</i> invited the four to reconsider whether we are fighting the right battle. </p>
<p>Are there avenues of reform still untraveled? Do our efforts at fixing a strictly construed campaign finance problem come at the expense of our fixing what is really a much broader problem of voter engagement? What is the connection between process reform and substantive progressive politics? Can <i>Buckley v. Valeo</i> be overturned? Should it be? And what sort of regime that would pass constitutional muster should replace it? </p>
<p>--<i>The Editors</i></p>
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<font color="#000099" face="verdana, arial, helvetica, sans" size="2"><br /><b>See the <a href="/special0900.html">Campaign Finance Special Section</a></b>!
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<b>Ellen S. Miller</b>
</p><p> The editors ask, "Wasn't it ever thus?" Yes, money over the years has carved deeper and deeper channels into politics, and yes, all the reforms of the twentieth century have failed to stanch the flow. And yes, the problem of money in politics is getting worse: There has never been such a gulf between elected representatives and the people they are supposed to serve, never such brazenness in the raising and giving of campaign money, or in the rape of the U.S. Treasury by corporate America. The piecemeal nature of campaign finance reform has contributed to this problem.</p>
<p>Campaign finance lawbending today is an extreme sport. A whole industry has sprung up whose business is advising candidates and parties on how to slither around rules. Politicians caught in dubious sit-uations--collecting large sums from an industry and then voting tax favors, for example--loudly proclaim that everything they have done is absolutely legal. They are technically right; often what they do is legal. This is precisely what's wrong with the system.</p>
<p>But it need not be "always thus." <a href="http://www.publiccampaign.org">Clean Money reform</a> can break the mold. Clean Money is law in Arizona, Maine, Massachusetts, and Vermont. Voters in two more states, Oregon and Missouri, will vote on Clean Money initiatives this November. And activists in 40 states have joined the Clean Money march, working to enact reform.</p>
<p>Under Clean Money reform, candidates who voluntarily agree to limit their spending and to reject campaign contributions from private sources can qualify for full public financing for their campaigns. Primaries are covered as well as general elections, opening up the possibility for real competition within the parties, which is a critical element in reducing the dominance of money in elections. Additional funds are also made available, up to a limit, if a Clean Money candidate is outspent by a privately financed opponent.</p>
<p>There are not a lot of reform proposals that comport with <a href="http://www.brookings.org/gs/cf/courts.htm">the Supreme Court dictum that money is speech</a>, but the Clean Money approach has been approved by the courts on all counts, most recently in February 2000 at the appellate level.</p>
<p>Unlike reforms based on contribution limits, or curtailing or disclosing a certain type of campaign contributions or spending, Clean Money reform is a comprehensive solution that goes directly to the core problem in the current system. It eliminates the link between special-interest contributions and the candidate. The public response is viscerally supportive. From the politicians' perspective, Clean Money also has appeal. They are freed from cold-calling donors and attending endless fundraising functions. And when they cast a vote on a tough public-policy issue, they can be questioned on the substance of that decision, not on whether they voted that way because they got money from donor X.</p>
<p>"Democracy is like a horizon, always approaching," says Vaclav Havel. We have to start with campaign finance reform--but not stop there--if our goal is a re-engaged citizenry. We won't engage citizens in the democratic process or in the polls until we fix the campaign finance system.</p>
<p><b>Ernesto Cortés, Jr.</b>
</p><p>Fixing campaign finance can help stem the effect of the political golden rule: "He who has the gold makes the rules." However, real politics is not raising money and paying for ads. It is about engaging in public discourse and collective action guided by that discourse. </p>
<p>
The current state of campaign finance is not just its own blight on democracy, but evidence of the deterioration of politics. So the real question is not only how to control the role of money, but how to recreate the vibrant, deliberative communities so sought by Jefferson, Tocqueville, Emerson, and Dewey. We need, therefore, a strategy to create an institutional framework whereby "ordinary" people develop the deliberative skills to do real politics.</p>
<p>Imagine, for example, if in 75 congressional districts, every candidate attended a meeting with 2,500 organized, registered voters, each committed to turning out at least 10 of their neighbors on election day. Suppose, at those public meetings, each candidate were asked to make a specific commitment to support an agenda that included, say, increasing the minimum wage, job training for living-wage jobs, health care for the 45 million individuals without health insurance, and universal preschool. </p>
<p>Imagine, further, that this constituency of voters was developed through a process that knitted back together <a href="http://tap.epn.org/commonwealth/">our attenuated layer of civic organizations</a>--our neighborhood groups, congregations, and public school communities. Suppose individuals, through a process of conversation, deliberation, and debate, forged a consensus agenda. It is through such face-to-face disagreement, argument, confrontation, and negotiation among constituents, and between a constituency and its candidate, that active citizenship and political efficacy can be realized.</p>
<p>The development of such "new" politics requires civic institutions to teach people that politics is not about campaign contributions, but about engaging one another to act collectively upon an agenda shared by many working families. Their job is to teach people how to form relationships with leaders and enlist political candidates to act on behalf of working families, not on behalf of those paying the campaign bills. </p>
<p>Through teaching, mentoring, and building organized constituencies, our civic institutions can help rehabilitate our political and civic culture. This strategy of civic institutions developing the capacities of ordinary people to advocate for their families and their communities is already emerging for hundreds of thousands of families living in Chicago, Boston, New York City, Baltimore, and virtually every major city in California, Arizona, and Texas, where grass-roots organizations have real life. </p>
<p>Recently, <i>BusinessWeek</i> magazine grudgingly conceded that <a href="http://www.newparty.org/livwag/">local living-wage ordinances</a> had done substantially more good than harm. Every elite interest group and most conventional politicians had opposed such laws. In every case, they were the work of grass-roots groups of ordinary citizens, organized to address practical economic needs.</p>
<p>Campaign finance reform is a step toward stemming the influence of wealth in congressional decisions. However substantive, political reform must begin with civic institutions engaging ordinary people in broad-based constituencies for change, shifting their role in American politics from spectators to full participants.</p>
<p>
<b> Cass R. Sunstein</b>
</p><p> A free society should be able to control arms races that take the form of more--and more desperate--efforts to raise money simply to compete in campaigns. Large and systematic economic inequalities (acceptable in a free society) must not be turned into large and systematic political inequalities (unacceptable in a free society).</p>
<p><a href="http://www2.law.cornell.edu/cgi-bin/foliocgi.exe/historic/query=[Group+424+U.S.+1:]([Level+Case+Citation:]|[Group+citemenu:])/doc/{@1}/hit_headings/words=4/hits_only?">Buckley v. Valeo</a> is one of the most castigated decisions of the past 40 years, and rightly so, because it forbids Congress from doing much to control direct expenditures on campaigns and issues. (But <i>Buckley</i> does allow Congress considerable room to control contributions to campaigns.) It is most unlikely that <i>Buckley</i> will be overruled in the near future. But the Court could well chip away at it without overruling it.</p>
<p>Any regulation of campaign expenditures creates a serious risk of unintended bad consequences. Limits on contributions to campaigns, for example, have helped to fuel the rise of political action committees, which can make expenditures on behalf of candidates and issues. Any restrictions in the future are all too likely to spur creative responses, producing risks of their own.</p>
<p>Some of the pressure on candidates can be relieved if television networks provide free airtime to candidates for office. Those interested in campaign finance reform should press for far greater assumption of civic responsibility by television networks. This is so especially because of the risk that, for many Americans, the Internet engenders excessive "customization"--a system in which people create a kind of "daily me" and do not encounter topics and ideas that they have not chosen in advance.</p>
<p>Some of the most promising current initiatives, entirely consistent with <i>Buckley</i>, tell candidates that they will receive <a href="http://www.publiccampaign.org">public funds</a>, but only on certain conditions--most notably that they will accept little, or nothing, from private contributors. At least part of a sensible package for the future would take the form of "conditional grants"--moving in the direction of public financing, not through flat bans, but through creating incentives toward a system of that kind via publicly provided "carrots." We need a fuller exploration of the virtues and limits of this approach.</p>
<p>
The fight for campaign finance reform needs to be in the context of a broader fight to rescue and revitalize our democratic process. Getting big money out of politics (which means getting public money in) is a necessary but not sufficient strategy for winning a decent democratic future. </p>
<p>
Interested money is certainly finding ever-more ingenious ways into campaigns, in larger and larger amounts; simply building more barriers cannot work. But it is also true that the momentum is growing for getting our politics off the money treadmill by fighting for a public financing system. While the main message nationally is still gridlock and feeding frenzy, it is significant that Al Gore has called for public financing of congressional races, and not only for passage of the McCain-Feingold bill. </p>
<p>In the states, support is growing in public consciousness, among candidates, in legislative battles, and even in the courts. Maine's law was ringingly upheld by a federal district court and reaffirmed by the First Circuit Court of Appeals. Candidates are using the law in new kinds of campaigns in Maine as well as Vermont and Arizona. In striking down part of Vermont's law, which is a direct challenge to <i>Buckley</i>, U.S. District Court Judge William Sessions practically pleaded with the Supreme Court to review the issue of spending limits from <i>Buckley</i> in light of the new and stark realities. While Connecticut's Republican governor vetoed a strong public financing bill this year, passing it through both legislative houses was a major step forward. Voters in Oregon and Missouri will consider ballot initiatives this November. And more states will see legislative fights next year.</p>
<p>Even so, campaign finance reform and demo-cracy reform are necessary complements. Bringing people into the process is as essential as getting money out. We have to continue to remove the barriers that still exist to participation. For example, in the African-American and Latino communities, and for many young people, exclusion from the political process based on a felony conviction is a growing issue of community disenfranchisement. As the <a href="http://www.sentencingproject.org/policy/9080.htm">Sentencing Project</a> has documented, over four million people are currently so barred from voting, in many states for life. We need to take this barrier down.</p>
<p>If we're serious about bringing young people into the process, we need to make politics relevant to them day in and day out. <a href="http://www.nass.org/nass99/youth.htm">A recent study</a> by the National Association of Secretaries of State showed that young people are not disengaged from community life at all; they just don't see what voting has to do with it. Getting into the schools with civic education and community service programs, having elected officials and candidates get out and talk to young people, on their terms, and putting major emphasis on registering kids in high schools are all key. Getting money out of politics just isn't enough. </p>
<p>Finally, process reform and substantive progressive policies are not alternatives; they reinforce each other. Battles over expanding health care access, coalitions to fight poverty and turn welfare reform into an effort for true self-sufficiency, fights for literacy and early childhood education--all of these energize mass politics. Money-and-politics reformers need to involve themselves in these issues fully and bring the issue of campaign finance reform to these fights, or the campaign finance issue will remain the preserve of good-government advocates only.</p>
<p>Restoring a functioning democracy isn't easy. But if we approach it holistically, taking together the issues most fundamental to different parts of our democratic community, victories will come, leading to more unity, more participation, and more victories in the future.</p>
<p><b>Ellen S. Miller</b>
</p><p> Bravo to all the round table participants on their creative ideas of ways to engage the public in political life. In the 1996 presidential elections, only one out of two people of voting age bothered to vote. What illustrates the crisis in our democracy better than that?</p>
<p>
The decision not to participate, however, is a logical one. Some three-fourths of all voters and political donors believe that half the time or more, members of Congress decide what to do based on what their contributors want rather than what they really believe, according to <a href="http://www.thenation.com/e2k/recent/poll.shtml">a survey</a> of generous campaign contributors and voters by the Campaign for America's Future (CAF), published in August 2000 in <i>The Nation</i>. More than half of voters believe that "special interests and lobbyists" have the "most control over what goes on in Washington, D.C." People decide not to vote because they believe they don't matter.</p>
<p>These are not mere perceptions; they are rooted in reality. The same survey shows that 54 percent of large donors have personally spoken to a federal elected official in the past year, but only 9 percent of voters have. A close study of campaign contribution data and congressional action--and inaction--further proves these points. Those who pay the piper call the tune ... over and over and over again. </p>
<p>Voters' cynicism is well-placed. If you were to ask a person on the street what he or she considered to be the biggest problem the nation faces, it would not be reform of the bankruptcy system, or banking deregulation, or securities litigation reform, yet Congress has devoted endless hours of debate to these issues in recent years and, in fact, has passed several laws. The fact that <a href="http://www.opensecrets.org/industries/indus.asp?Ind=F">the financial industry</a> is consistently the most generous source of campaign contributions election after election, already giving more than $136 million to candidates and parties this election cycle, explains a great deal about congressional agenda-setting.</p>
<p>Meanwhile, when it comes to the issues voters do care about--financial security, health care coverage, education, a clean environment--Congress pays little attention or considers only the most piecemeal solutions. A hike in the minimum wage is unheard of unless accompanied by a long list of tax breaks for big business donors. Instead of discussing how to provide health insurance to all those who lack it, Congress has been debating a much narrower question for those who already have care: patients' rights at HMOs. Free trade is the mantra for both Bush and Gore and the majority in Congress, while only one-quarter of voters believe that free trade creates more jobs than it costs, according to CAF's poll. In contrast, 55 percent of large political donors believe free trade creates jobs.</p>
<p>Until we reform the campaign finance system, how can we tell voters, truthfully, that their vote counts as much as anybody else's, including a $250,000-plus donor to the Republican or Democratic party? We run the risk of creating a new group of cynics if we say they count just as much and then they find out, in the rough and tumble of politics, that they don't, not really. That said, campaign finance reform is not a panacea for all that ails our body politic. It is simply a step, and a modest one at that. The rest is the difficult but also crucial work of organizing, engaging our citizenry, and encouraging people to be active in our democracy, just as Miles Rapoport and Ernesto Cortés describe.</p>
<p><b>Ernesto Cortés, Jr.</b>
</p><p> Regardless of whether, as Cass Sunstein writes, we focus on alternative strategies that are not predicated on the reversal of <i>Buckley v. Valeo</i>, and/or possibly take our direction from the state-level reforms already in place as suggested by Ellen Miller and Miles Rapoport, it is clearly in our interest as a democracy to address the issue of money in politics. </p>
<p>However, as I think about campaign finance reform, I am reminded that Franklin D. Roosevelt is reported to have said something like, "Okay, you've convinced me... . Now go out there and organize and create a constituency to make me do it." Unfortunately, it seems that many progressives are caught up in the convincing when what we also need is to build the constituency or, as Ed Chambers, Industrial Areas Foundation (IAF) director says, "power before program."</p>
<p>I think it is significant that each of us acknowledges that campaign finance reform alone is not sufficient to revitalize our <i>polis</i> and re-engage one another in the true business of citizenship. I suspect that it is not just the campaign finance system that has caused our democratic culture to deteriorate. Much of the blame lies in the absence of institutions that teach people the deliberative skills and habits of thought necessary for real politics. In fact, I would encourage us to consider the question of whether the decline of these civic institutions has in fact created the context in which money is able to so dominate our political process.</p>
<p>It is clear, however, that regardless of how we reached this point, action must be taken to reverse the decline of political life in the United States. It is ironic that the media bemoans the fact that politics and government are reviled as corrupt, disconnected institutions that have little relevance for the lives of families and neighborhoods, when television is actually one of the most important causes of the transformation of our political campaigns into marketing strategies requiring huge infusions of private financing. </p>
<p>In spite of how truthful their cries may be--that people are disenchanted; they don't vote; they don't want to pay taxes; they think less government is better government--it is equally truthful that in places where the broad-based IAF organizations are fully operative, organized people are voting in <i>increasing</i> numbers. In places like Chicago, Boston, New York City, Baltimore, the Lower Rio Grande Valley of Texas, San Antonio, Austin, and virtually all the major cities in Texas and Arizona, organized citizens have voted for candidates who support their agendas of issues, agendas carefully negotiated and developed out of house meetings, individual meetings, neighborhood walks, and research actions. They have voted for tax increases and bond elections to provide funding for the programs and infrastructure improvements called for by these agendas.</p>
<p>Now sustaining these efforts and their successes requires ongoing face-to-face, grass-roots organizing efforts. Unfortunately, most candidates, political parties, and even liberals regard these kinds of strategies as anachronistic or worse: They don't suit the perceived interests of the Internet generation.</p>
<p>
This is not to say that campaign finance reform would not enhance these efforts. I celebrate the points my colleagues have made, but I believe we must give equal time to rebuilding the democratic institutions that create the deliberative capacities so necessary for the practice of real politics.</p>
<p><b>Cass Sunstein</b>
</p><p> Karl Llewellyn, the late law professor, liked to say, "Technique without morals is a menace; but morals without technique is a mess." One of my reactions to the various remarks is that campaign finance reform needs to be highly practical and to avoid mess. What reforms will actually work? What reforms will be upheld by the Supreme Court? What reforms will create unintended bad consequences? </p>
<p><a href="http://www2.law.cornell.edu/cgi-bin/foliocgi.exe/historic/query=[Group+424+U.S.+1:]([Level+Case+Citation:]|[Group+citemenu:])/doc/{@1}/hit_headings/words=4/hits_only?"><i>Buckley v. Valeo</i></a> is poorly understood. The Court did not strike down campaign finance reform as a whole. Instead, the Court suggested three different points. First, Congress could not limit direct expenditures on campaigns, by candidates for themselves (consider the case of Ross Perot) or by people who are spending money on their own (thus, I could spend limitless money to fund my own, independent, nonaffiliated commercial for John McCain). </p>
<p>Second, the Court said that Congress could limit contributions to campaigns, to reduce the risk and reality of corruption. Third, the Court indicated that public financing is entirely legitimate so long as it is voluntary and does not forbid private expenditures. A system in which candidates were asked not to accept private money and not to spend money on themselves, in return for public financing, would be entirely legitimate.</p>
<p>The rise of political action committees is an unintended consequence of <i>Buckley</i> itself. Under <i>Buckley</i>, PACs seem permitted to spend unlimited money "on their own." But the Court has disputed this open-ended reading of <i>Buckley</i>; its members have been sharply divided about whether and how legislatures can reduce the influence of PACs. Some of the justices have shown a willingness to chip away a bit at <i>Buckley</i> here and to allow legislatures to act in this domain.</p>
<p>Without a change in the composition of the Court, the three points outlined above will likely remain the law. Still, Congress retains considerable power. And where the issue is not directly controlled by <i>Buckley</i>--as in the case of PACs--some legislation might well be upheld. In the long run, a sustained public attack on <i>Buckley</i>, accompanied by well-considered legislation that attacks its premises, might lead the Court to overrule the case. Don't bet on it, but stranger things have happened.</p>
<p>In these circumstances, I am especially enthusiastic about Ellen Miller's emphasis on Clean Money campaign reform. She is right to say that this approach is consistent with <i>Buckley v. Valeo</i> and unlikely to create the unintended consequences associated with partial remedies. Recall that limitations on contributions helped spur the rise of PACs, and that limitations on hard money are responsible for the rise in soft money. </p>
<p>Part of what would probably make sense, in the short run, is to combine (a) public financing à la Clean Money reform (available for those who renounce expenditures or private contributions), alongside (b) efforts to control the power of PACs, (c) limits on contributions of the sort upheld in <i>Buckley</i>, and (d) compulsory disclosure of all financial matters, including the names of private donors and the amounts they have given.</p>
<p>One cautionary note: Campaign finance reform is important, but too much attention is being paid to nonscandal scandals and to sensationalistic, false claims about how officials are in the "pocket" of special interests. Consider George W. Bush's truly disgraceful decision to run campaign advertisements about Gore's Buddhist temple visit. Bush himself receives a huge amount of corporate money, but the best guess is that he gets the money because he agrees with the donors, not the other way around. While American government needs campaign finance reform, the level of actual corruption is happily low. I agree with Ernesto Cortés and Miles Rapoport insofar as they see campaign finance reform as part of a more general project of improving democracy. The real issue is what government policies would do for, or to, people's lives. Too much emphasis on who is allegedly beholden to whom can make it harder to address people's genuine disagreements about that issue.</p>
<p><b>Miles Rapoport</b>
</p><p> My colleagues' comments lead me to three further observations on the nature of real campaign finance reform, the possibility of judicial progress, and the relationship of campaign finance reform to grass-roots community and issue organizing.</p>
<p>First, all of us are clear that fundamental reform requires finding an alternate way for campaigns to function, not just plugging ingenious routes to private cash. We can't just try to throw more dams at a river cascading downhill. Ellen, Cass, and I argue for public financing, coupled with real limits on what candidates can spend and with effective limits on the potentially overwhelming influence of noncandidate expenditures. This approach has won in several states, and the view is gaining ground in the reform community. None of us believes that half-steps will work. I thank Cass for reminding us of the need for meaningful candidate access to the media, one of the key drivers of the ever-increasing costs of campaigning.</p>
<p>Second, <i>Buckley</i> is really shorthand for a whole set of judicial decisions that have consistently widened campaign spending loopholes in the name of protecting political speech and the role of political parties. I do believe that judicial opinion is shifting significantly, trailing reality but catching up. In the recent Maine and Arizona cases, the fundamental principles of providing public financing, and of giving matching funds for independent expenditures, have been upheld. The judge in the Vermont case in August said mandatory spending limits were unconstitutional under <i>Buckley</i>, a decision that led Governor Howard Dean to withdraw from the public financing system lest he be wildly outspent. But the judge also ruled that some limits on parties' expenditures would be reasonable and stated the need for a real review of <i>Buckley</i>. </p>
<p>The best challenge to <i>Buckley</i> will be from a case that provides solid levels of financing to candidates and matching funds for independent expenditures, and sets strict and effective limits on what nonparticipating candidates can spend. All in all, the judicial situation is certainly fluid enough to go at it rather than see the situation as hopeless. It is, of course, ironic that the possibilities of getting <i>Buckley</i> overturned will best come from a court appointed by President Gore, who will win in a campaign in which both sides are more awash in soft money and indirect expenditures than ever. But this is only a stronger argument for getting the law changed once and for all, not one for one-sided abstinence.</p>
<p>Lastly, Ernesto agrees on the corruption money brings to our politics, but the thrust of his argument is that powerful citizen organizing is the key to revitalizing democracy, more important than campaign finance reform itself. I heartily agree that real organizing work is fundamental to the health of our democracy. The examples he cites of the IAF's broad-based institutional organizing are impressive indeed. So, too, are the consistent organizing efforts of groups like the <a href="http://www.acorn.org">Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now (ACORN)</a>, <a href="http://www.usaction.org/">USAction</a>, and a host of neighborhood-based organizing efforts and statewide issue organizations and electoral coalitions. Labor's renewed commitment to organizing is an enormous plus. The victories these groups have won, the changes they have brought to people's lives, and the changes they have made in the relations of power at the local and state levels are legion and vastly underrecognized.</p>
<p>But I also have to say, as a former legislator as well as an organizer, that the challenge of leveling the playing field for citizens is huge. At the Connecticut legislature, I was always delighted (not all of my colleagues were) when the demonstrations, vigils, tent cities, and lobby days of citizen, labor, and poverty activists arrived and got in our faces. But the next day and the day after, what was left were the lobbyists, overwhelmingly businessoriented, largely defining the parameters of acceptable outcomes. And when it comes time to hold campaign fundraisers, even the best of legislators pull out the lobbyist list and start addressing envelopes. Citizen organizing has to fight on key community and economic issues, but it must also pay attention to the rules of the game itself. Changing our campaign finance system needs to be a part of the agenda of every citizen organization that seriously wants to win in the long run. ¤</p>
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Should the Supreme Court reconsider its ruling in Buckley v. Valeo? Discuss campaign finance reform in our <a href="http://www.prospect.org/cgi-bin/webx?13@@.ee6b54f">forum</a>.
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<hr size="1" /><!-- dhandler for print articles --></center></div></div></div>Wed, 19 Dec 2001 19:04:41 +0000141836 at http://prospect.orgEllen MillerCampaign Reformhttp://prospect.org/article/campaign-reform
<div class="field field-name-body field-type-text-with-summary field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even"> <p>A funny thing happened on the way to making soft money the symbol for all that is wrong with the nation's campaign finance system. Hard money--the stuff that is harder to amass because it is regulated by the <a href="http://www.fec.gov/">Federal Election Campaign Act</a> and limited in a variety of ways--has begun to look like virtuous money to some people.&#13;</p>
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Consider the following examples. In September, Senate candidate Rick Lazio of New York defended his heavy fundraising from out-of-state donors like the Wyly brothers from Texas (who paid for more than $2 million worth of issue ads against Arizona Senator John McCain at a crucial moment in the Republican presidential primary race), saying, "All I can tell you ... is that this is all clean, hard donors. These are all disclosed dollars. These are dollars that are protected under campaign finance reform." &#13;</p>
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&#13;<br /><a href="http://www.democrats.org/index.html">Democratic National Committee</a> spokeswoman Jennifer Backus took a similar tack in defending a giant fundraiser headlined by Barbra Streisand that took place in Los Angeles. This was only hours after Vice President Al Gore's acceptance speech at the Democratic national convention, in which he promised to make the McCain-Feingold reform bill his number-one priority. As <i>The New York Times</i> reported: "Backus said the event was consistent with the party's support for campaign finance reform because it collected only hard money. The $5.2 million raised tonight was the largest hard-money event in Democratic Party history, she said."&#13;</p>
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In a narrow, technical sense, neither Lazio nor Backus was wrong in saying that collecting hard dollars is consistent with the law; nor are they wrong in arguing that huge hard-money fundraising would be acceptable under the <a href="http://www.senate.gov/~feingold/issuearea/govreform.html#cfr">McCain-Feingold</a> version of reform. Opportunistic politicians and party operatives can hardly be faulted for trying to take advantage of any edge they can find in the campaign finance game.&#13;</p>
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But that doesn't mean the rest of us should be fooled. Hard money and soft money alike are <a href="http://www.opensecrets.org/">political contributions given to gain access to politicians</a>. If a Goldman Sachs or Philip Morris or Microsoft executive gives a hard-money contribution to a member of Congress who chairs a committee that is considering legislation affecting the company's bottom line, it is not "better" or "cleaner" than making a soft-money contribution--it is simply treated differently by the law. Money given for influence is money given for influence, no matter what it is called. Seventy-five percent of the automotive industry's $12.1 million in contributions this reporting cycle have been in the form of hard money, as have 59 percent of the securities-and-investment industry's $57.8 million and 51 percent of the oil-and-gas industry's $22.8 million.&#13;</p>
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And despite the tremendous growth spurt in soft-money contributions to national political parties for the 2000 elections--$255.8 million by June 30, 2000, compared to $149.7 million at the same point in the 1996 election cycle--soft money still accounts for just 16 percent of party and candidate fundraising overall.&#13;</p>
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Controlling the explosion of <a href="http://itsyourcountry.com/">soft money</a> is a crucial part of any campaign finance reform effort. The cynical use of these unlimited contributions to support candidates despite campaign finance laws forbidding the practice is a blot on the political system (money given to parties is supposed to go for party building, not for specific campaigns). There is no argument that the importance of soft money in political campaigns has increased astronomically in recent years. But even if every single dollar of soft money were banned from the system, there would still be hundreds of millions of dollars contributed by special interests. Comprehensive campaign finance reform requires a <a href="http://www.publiccampaign.org">clean break</a> from the present system, so that candidates can run for office without being dependent on special-interest contributors no matter how "hard" or "soft" their donations. </p>
</div></div></div>Wed, 19 Dec 2001 19:04:41 +0000141876 at http://prospect.orgEllen MillerGolden Zip Codeshttp://prospect.org/article/golden-zip-codes
<div class="field field-name-body field-type-text-with-summary field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even"> <p>From the high-rises of New York's Upper East Side to the mansions of Beverly Hills, the wealthiest Americans are opening their wallets to invest in presidential politics. Candidates Bill Bradley, George W. Bush, Al Gore, and John McCain are all overwhelmingly and disproportionately dependent on wealthy and white contributors to finance their campaigns. While the candidates obviously differ on many issues, that bottom-line fact speaks volumes about who the most important people are in selecting our next president. And they don't look like you and me.&#13;</p>
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<p>By and large, it is the same neighborhoods--represented by zip codes like 10021 in Manhattan's Upper East Side and, of course, 90210 in Beverly Hills--that are funding all four front-runners in the race. This conclusion is based on a comparison of large individual contributions ($200 and up) to the presidential candidates with the most recent U.S. Census data, grouped by income, zip code, and race. Contributions of $200 or more account for 84 percent of the total contributions made by individuals to presidential campaigns. Of the four leading candidates, only John McCain is significantly below the average, at 69 percent. Gore, Bradley, and Bush have each raised 90 percent or more of their funds from these large donors.&#13;</p>
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The ritzy Upper East Side Manhattan zip code 10021 has yielded more money for presidential candidates than any other zip code--$1.5 million. That's nearly 80 times more money than came from people living uptown in 10029, in East Harlem, who gave $19,100. Beverly Hills 90210 has produced nearly half a million dollars for presidential candidates. From there it's a 35-minute drive to 90059, in Watts, where just $250 has been given to presidential candidates. That's nearly 2,000 times more money from the zip code 90210 than from 90059. &#13;</p>
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The effects of these disparities are not benign: The people who give all of this money are not representative of the rest of the country. In 1998 a group of academics supported by the Joyce Foun-dation published the results of a mail survey--a random sample of large individual donors ($200 or more) in the 1996 elections. Four-fifths of the donors reported an annual family income of more than $100,000 a year, and only one in 20 had an income of $50,000 or less a year. Nine out of 10 were white. By comparison, just 6 percent of Americans make $100,000 or more and roughly one-quarter of us are people of color.&#13;</p>
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More than half of the donors in the Joyce survey said they support cutting taxes even if that means reducing public services--only one-third of the public agrees with that proposition. By two to one, the donor class opposes cutting defense spending and supports free trade "even if jobs are lost." Pluralities reject national health insurance and disagree with spending more to reduce poverty.&#13;</p>
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When candidates are forced to spend so much time listening to the problems of the wealthy, they don't hear about how hard it is to get decent health coverage or child care. Instead, they get an earful about taxes or government regulations. That the wealthy keep the president on a leash is obvious by what gets done in Washington--and what doesn't. We need an alternative for the financing of presidential campaigns.</p>
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</div></div></div>Wed, 19 Dec 2001 19:04:41 +0000141899 at http://prospect.orgEllen MillerA Reform That Lobbyists Could Lovehttp://prospect.org/article/reform-lobbyists-could-love
<div class="field field-name-body field-type-text-with-summary field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even"> </div></div></div>Wed, 19 Dec 2001 19:04:41 +0000142196 at http://prospect.orgEllen MillerThe Hard Truth about McCain's Soft Money Banhttp://prospect.org/article/hard-truth-about-mccains-soft-money-ban
<div class="field field-name-body field-type-text-with-summary field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even"> <p>Everyone jumped all over John McCain after the news broke that he had intervened with the Federal Communications Commission on behalf of a generous campaign contributor. Here's a candidate who has made campaign finance reform the centerpiece of his campaign, and he was caught committing a blatant act of favoritism for a contributor. What could be worse than that?</p>
<p></p><p>Lots. The real scandal is not that McCain did the favor despite his crusade to clean up government. Nor is it that "everybody is tainted by the system," as McCain himself said. The real story is that McCain's campaign finance reform proposal won't clean up the sort of mess McCain--and every other candidate--finds himself in.</p>
<p>McCain wants a ban on "soft money," the unlimited contributions that flow into political parties spawned by a loophole in the election laws. Soft money is a real scourge on the body politic, and eliminating it would be a significant step. But when McCain took money from Paxson Communications's executives and lawyers, as first reported by <i>The Boston Globe</i>, it wasn't soft money he was taking. The $20,000 his presidential campaign collected from this interest came in as "hard money," subject to the $1,000-per-donor-per-election limit under current campaign finance law.</p>
<p>It can be easily argued that candidates' reliance on "hard money" is as problematic as soft money for the body politic--or even more so. In the 1996 presidential election cycle, soft money accounted for just 11 percent of the total raised by federal candidates and political parties--$262 million out of $2.4 billion. This time around it may amount to 16 percent--$500 million out of perhaps $3 billion. And company executives regularly "bundle" hard money contributions to politicians, particularly ones in a position to do something for them in return. As chairman of the powerful Senate Commerce Committee, which regulates telecommunications, McCain collected nearly $329,000 in large contributions from communications and electronics executives between 1993 and 1998, according to the Center for Responsive Politics. That's not even counting the additional $237,000 he collected from this industry's PACs over the same time period. Not a dime of the money that "corrupted" McCain was soft money.</p>
<p>And he's not alone. Every dollar of the $67 million raised by the Republican front-runner in 1999 came in hard money. George W. Bush likes to claim that this shows the breadth of his grass-roots support, but it's telling that his fundraising operation has given its top money men individual tracking codes for donors to write on their checks. An internal memo written by the head of the electric power industry's main lobbying group explains to potential donors why these codes are important, with capitalization used in the original document for emphasis: "IT DOES ENSURE THAT OUR INDUSTRY IS CREDITED, AND THAT YOUR PROGRESS IS LISTED AMONG THE OTHER BUSINESS/INDUSTRY SECTORS." If there's no quid pro quo connected to contributions, why else should Bush keep track of which industries are favoring him and by how much?</p>
<p>A soft money ban--the proposal McCain has advanced--wouldn't take him or any other presidential or congressional candidate off the hook. As long as candidates are dependent on private money for their campaigns, they will be subject to legitimate conflict-of-interest charges.</p>
</div></div></div>Wed, 19 Dec 2001 19:04:41 +0000142310 at http://prospect.orgEllen Miller